


Injuries & Adoptions

by geeketeer



Series: Star Wars Discord Writing Challenges [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: Jedi Apprentice Series - Jude Watson & Dave Wolverton, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Additional tags pending, Amputation, Canon What Canon, Character Death, Child Abuse, Everyone Wants to Adopt Obi-Wan, Geese, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Obi-Wan is 9, Out of Characterness will probably happen so don't @ me, Qui-Gon Jinn Bashing, Qui-Gon Jinn Gets Injured, R2-D2 also adopts another kid but I'm not tagging them due to spoilers, Time Travel, Yoda bashing, Young Obi-Wan Kenobi, deaging, identity theft, timelines what timelines
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-08
Updated: 2020-10-08
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:22:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 30,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26360344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/geeketeer/pseuds/geeketeer
Summary: This is a collection of one-shots in response to mneiai's September Discord Writing Challenge of Punch Qui-Gon and Adopt Obi-Wan.I can't guarantee an upload schedule but this collection will be updated until it is completed sometime in October. I have the chapters' notes written, it's just finding the time to write them.
Relationships: CC-1010 | Fox & Obi-Wan Kenobi, Cad Bane & Obi-Wan Kenobi, Cin Drallig & Obi-Wan Kenobi, Darth Maul & Savage Oppress & Feral Oppress & Obi-Wan Kenobi, Hondo Ohnaka & Obi-Wan Kenobi, Mace Windu & Obi-Wan Kenobi, Original Mandalorian Characters & Obi-Wan Kenobi, Plo Koon & Obi-Wan Kenobi, Qui-Gon Jinn & Obi-Wan Kenobi, R2-D2 & Obi-Wan Kenobi, Xanatos & Obi-Wan Kenobi
Series: Star Wars Discord Writing Challenges [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1915516
Comments: 399
Kudos: 1203
Collections: Anything But Qui-Gon, Punch Qui-Gon and Adopt Obi-Wan, Stories Which Made for a Better Day, all my homies hate qui-gon





	1. Cade Bane

**Author's Note:**

> Just a quick reminder that in the Star Wars universe, a standard month is 35 days.

Cad Bane’s large hat hid his glare toward the poorly disguised Jedi – a poncho which didn’t even properly cover the man’s lightsaber – who led his tiny, red-haired padawan – the Master couldn’t even ATTEMPT to hide the child’s braid? Anyone who knew anything about Jedi was aware of what that braid meant – toward Bane’s booth in the corner of the crummy, space station cantina.

Not to mention the Wookie-like man didn’t seem to register the other patrons’ obvious calculating stares at the child…..seriously, was the kid’s species of human supposed to be that small? Bane had never seen such a tiny human padawan before in his previous dealings with the Jedi.

The Duros drained the last bit of whiskey from his glass as the adult Jedi and child reached Bane’s table. Bane’s estimation of the Jedi rose slightly as the large man nudged the child into the booth seat closest to the wall before taking his own position on the outside seat. Good, at least the idiot had some sense to protect the kid.

A serving droid wandered over to the table and Jinn ordered water as well as roasted nerf sandwiches and kelp chips for himself and the boy. Bane ordered another whiskey as well as some kelp chips to help soak up the alcohol as he’d need his wits dealing with a Jedi.

The man – ah, so this was the infamous Qui-Gon Jinn who’d been the talk of the all the scoundrels of the galaxy – explained that there had been a “misunderstanding” with the captain of their previous vessel and they had been stranded on the nameless, Outer Rim station instead of making their way back to the Jedi Temple on Coruscant.

Misunderstanding...right, more like Jinn tried to use one of those Jedi mind tricks on the previous captain in an attempt to reduce or eliminate the passage fee. It wouldn’t be the first time if the rumor mill was correct.

Or, Bane considered as his attention flicked to the baby Jedi – Obi-Wan Kenobi – the captain could have attempted to pull a fast one on Jinn in order to acquire the Force-sensitive youngling and Jinn rose to the child’s defense, leaving the duo to have to find alternate transportation. Jinn shouldn’t have been surprised if that was the case, a tiny red-haired baby Jedi would be quite the tempting prize for some beings.

Bane chewed on his toothpick, as Jinn continued to try to convince the mercenary to take them on as passengers for the standard month-long journey. One on hand, he wasn’t sure it was worth the headache of being around Jinn – especially if the rumors proved to be true about how the man treated his supposed allies – for so long. On the other, Bane would have the pleasure of relieving the Jedi of his credits and an excuse to finally get off this forsaken space station after Bane’s contact didn’t show up for their meeting a standard week ago.

And quite frankly, Bane’s patience had run out waiting for the no-show being who didn’t even have the courtesy to comm Bane about any possible delays to meet up. Time meant credits and the deadbeat now owed Bane – the bounty hunter made a mental note to hunt down the moron later to resolve the matter.

Mind made up, Bane cut off whatever Jinn had been about to say by shoving a piece of flimsi in the adult Jedi’s direction. “Transfer the credits to this account. When I get confirmation of the credit transfer, be ready for take-off in three hours” the Duros said, standing to settle his bill at the bar.

Bane had to stop himself from rolling his eyes at Jinn’s smug grin. The bounty hunter almost wished the Jedi would attempt to use force trickery on him, it would be worth seeing the other’s shocked face when he realized Bane had force-blocking tech on him at all times.

\-------

A few days into the journey and Jinn started to annoy Bane.

Not that the Jedi did anything to Bane.

Bane’s growing annoyance was, more specifically, with Kenobi.

It wasn’t that the small padawan was causing Bane trouble.

The child kept to himself, usually sitting on the floor just outside of the Jedis’ quarters while reading from one datapad while taking notes in another datapad. Even little Jedi had to do homework, it seemed.

Bane almost tripped over Kenobi the first time but the red-haired child – seriously why was this child so tiny – had been engrossed in his task, so Bane just walked away and didn’t think too much about it.

Jinn never seemed to be in Kenobi’s company, at least from Bane’s observation, so far.

It was like the scruffy Jedi was too involved with his own… Jedi kriff to pay too much attention to his own padawan.

Jedi were usually so attached to their padawans to the point of madness, despite what the Jedi would try to shovel to the public about their “no attachments” rule. Bane wasn’t too sure what to think of Jinn’s actions, well, inaction.

The bounty hunter frowned to himself when he took a better look at the child. Kenobi had dark smudges under his eyes and looked a tad bit thinner than he had a few days before leaving the space station.

_**What the Corellian Hells?!** _

The Duros huffed to himself. Fine, if that moron wasn’t going to look after the kid, then he would.

It wasn’t like Bane really cared, he just didn’t want to deal with the Jedi Council if something happened to the kid. He would file a report about Jinn’s negligence though, the Jedi should be aware of how one of their own is treating one of their younglings.

The bounty hunter let his feet scuff against the floor so Kenobi wouldn’t be too startled at his approach. When the kid looked up his datapad, Bane slowly lowered himself into a crouch as to not loom over Kenobi.

“Little Jedi, I’m going to the galley to fix late-meal, do you want to come with me?” he asked, trying to keep his face neutral enough not to scare the kid.

Kenobi chewed on his lip a bit and looked over his shoulder at the door to Jinn and Kenobi’s quarters.

…..Bane should probably start cleaning out the other spare room next to his own quarters for the kid, he wasn’t sure he wanted Kenobi near Jinn anymore than necessary.

Just to make sure the adult human didn’t kill the boy through his apparent neglect.

~~Bane wondered if the Jedi would even notice.~~

“I’ll talk to Jinn if he has a problem with it,” Bane attempted to assure the boy, who looked as if the matter was between life and death instead of just going to the galley for a meal.

After a few more moments, Kenobi nodded and tucked the datapad away in a crossbody bag that had been propping up the device. He grabbed the bag’s strap to put it on his shoulder as Bane stood up and turned to head into the galley. The bounty hunter heard Kenobi’s steps behind him as they headed further into the ship.

\------

Nine standard.

The little padawan was only NINE. STANDARD. YEARS. OLD.

No wonder Obi-Wan Kenobi was so small. NINE. STANDARD.

And this was the first time he had ever been out of the Jedi Temple, had ever been off Coruscant.

_**What the hell had Jinn been thinking bringing a nine-year-old into the worst part of the Outer Rim?!** _

The Duros was careful to keep himself as calm as possible, lest it disturb the youngling who had fallen asleep into the bounty hunter’s side after the late meal pick-up on his feelings through the Force. Bane obviously had to do some digging but didn’t want to take the kid back to Jinn and didn’t want to leave him in the galley.

After a few moments of staring down at little Kenobi, Bane sighed to himself and wrapped an arm around the sleeping child to settle him onto Bane’s hip. The Duros brought the sleeping child to his own quarters and carefully placed him under the blankets in the sleeping berth.

After checking that Kenobi was still sleeping, Bane retreated to the other side of the room where a mobile computer terminal rested on the built-in work area.

He had a night of slicing ahead of him.

\-----

Bane caught a few hours of sleep leaning against the wall next to the built-in desk after slicing into the Jedi Temple’s records about the Jedi pair. He only had time to find the records and make his own copies before covering up that he had ever been inside the Temple’s computer systems. He’d read them later when he was checking on the navigation computer.

He was amused to see the reddened face of little Kenobi almost sputter when he woke up for the day-cycle and herded the child towards Bane’s personal fresher in the corner of the room.

Bane assured the suddenly anxious child that he would let Jinn know where he was and told him to go to the galley for first-meal when he was finished in the fresher.

\------

Jinn didn’t come looking for Bane at the beginning of the ship’s day-cycle.

The grown Jedi didn’t seem to care that his padawan hadn’t returned to their quarters the previous night-cycle, just simply shrugged it off when Bane informed him –as a courtesy – where the youngling was.

It was odd that a Jedi wouldn’t care about their padawan.

Bane would get to the bottom of this, but first, he had a child to feed.

\------

He started with Obi-Wan Kenobi’s files first, out of curiosity to learn more of the youngling.

Bane admitted he was impressed as the educational files proved the kid was quite intelligent for his age, seemed to get along with most of his peers, and didn’t play around during weapons training –a minor miracle, as most younglings seemed to treat weapons as toys until they injured themselves.

He skimmed the medical records just to see if Kenobi had allergies or major medical concerns he should be aware of – there weren’t any.

Bane was thrown off balance when he came across the records about the youngling’s Force abilities. He didn’t understand exactly why Kenobi hadn’t been assigned to some sort of Jedi Seer for training if the notations of the child’s violent Force visions held any water.

He would have to pay closer attention to the child’s behavior then. Bane didn’t care, per se….it’s just if Kenobi experienced an extremely bad vision, Bane would need to be prepared to calm the child down from using the Force to lash out to damage the ship.

It was diving into Jinn’s records in which Bane’s somewhat neutral opinion of the Jedi started to sink.

_**What the KRIFF was wrong with the Jedi Council?! The human needed a karking therapist, not a child!** _

Bane’s opinion fell even further when he got to what the mission had been and the Council’s notes about the Jinn-Kenobi pair.

\------

Bane shouldn’t have been surprised when Kenobi started to find excuses to be around him more, as he was now the one making sure the child’s basic needs were being taken care of.

Sometimes it was nothing more than to be in the bounty hunter’s company while the kid did his reading assignments and others it was to see if he could watch Bane work around the ship.

But he had not been prepared for little Kenobi’s request.

“You….want blaster training, kid?” Bane asked, not quite sure he heard right.

The youngling blinked his wide blue eyes up at him and nodded. “I understand if you don’t have time, Mr. Bane…”

The Duros cut the youngling with a shake of his head. “Naw kid, just most Jedi don’t like blasters, is all. Prefer lightsabers above all else.”

“I don’t have permission to build one. Master Jinn says I’m not responsible enough,” Kenobi muttered while looking down at his feet.

Bane snorted, which caused the padawan to look up at him. The bounty hunter motioned for the child to follow him and the pair went into another part of the ship.

Little Kenobi’s eyes widened –much to Bane’s amusement – at the collection of weapons displayed on the walls behind military-grade thick transparisteel automatic sliding doors which had slice-proof biolocks on them.

Bane went to the display closest to him and selected a small blaster from it when the door slid open. He pointed to a table with a few tools littered across the service.

“First lesson: blaster care and maintenance. Before I even let you attempt target practice, you’re going to learn the ins and outs of this weapon.”

\------

Young Kenobi – Obi-Wan’s – face lit up a few days later as he managed to hit the center of the target multiple times.

“Good job, kid,” Bane said, putting his hand on the child’s head.

\------

“Kid, consider hiding a knife on yourself when you are allowed a lightsaber of your own.”

“Why?”

“Lightsabers, while admittedly effective, are overblown glow-sticks that draw attention to yourself. Plus no one ever expects a Jedi to use a regular knife.”

“Yes, sir.”

\------

“Mr. Bane?”

“What is it, kid?”

“I don’t think Master thinks I would be a good Jedi.”

“…..and why would that be?”

“Well, you see…”

\------

“….and that is how you hide a knife in your boot. We’ll be practicing on how to quickly hide it away and get it out until it becomes second nature.”

\------

It was a damn shame that the Jedi found the youngling first. Obi-Wan would have made such a glorious bounty hunter.

Bane admitted he would miss the child when they arrived at Coruscant in 12 days.

\-------

Bane bit back a curse at Jinn loomed over Obi-Wan and spied the child’s braid pulled taunt in one of the adult human’s large hands. As he drew closer, he felt as if his chest had been kicked.

 _**Those were tears streaming down Obi-Wan’s face** _.

“—and the Council will HEAR of this disobedience!” Jinn pulled on the braid, which caused Obi-Wan to go up on his tip-toes as he head was pulled into what had to be an uncomfortable angle.

The bounty hunter strode into the adult Jedi’s space and grabbed Jinn’s wrist, which startled the man into releasing the braid from his grip.

Obi-Wan stumbled back a few steps and dashed behind Bane in order to stay away from the angered human adult.

“Kid, go lock yourself in my quarters while I have a …. chat about proper behavior with Jinn.”

The child’s eyes darted between the two, nodded, and raced down the corridor.

Bane held onto his hat as he ducked and rolled to the side when Jinn swung his green-bladed lightsaber to where his head had just been.

“Obi-Wan is MY padawan!,” Jinn roared as he shifted his position to keep track of the Duros. “He’s MINE to teach and MINE to protect!”

Bane snorted as he leapt up and activated his flame thrower as he twirled around to face the Jedi. “Could have fooled me, Jedi, as the only time I’ve seen you around the youngling was at that space station.”

He aimed a burst of flame at Jinn’s lightsaber hand and smirked when the Jedi swore while dropping the reddened hilt. The lit end sputtered out as it hit the floor.

Jinn glared at Bane while holding his injured hand to himself. The bounty hunter was disappointed to see the burn was disappearing quickly.

“In fact,” Bane said, pulling out his blasters and twirling them around in his hands before pointing them at Jinn. “You didn’t seem very concerned about where the baby Jedi has been spending his time before now.”

Bane switched the blasters to a lower setting –it wouldn’t do him any good to damage his own ship – before firing a few shots at the human while backing up toward the back of the ship.

“I’d say that you’re jealous that the child no longer seems to hang on every word you utter and that he isn’t fighting for your attention as he had previously.”

He wasn’t surprised that Jinn easily dodged the blaster bolts – but hitting the infuriating human hadn’t been the point.

Jinn raised his hand at Bane and said with a slight wave of his hand “, You will leave Obi-Wan Kenobi alone and drop us off at the nearest spaceport.” He flinched back and frowned when Bane started cackling.

“Did you really expect that to work on ME, Jedi?” Bane smirked at the other. “Did you NOT know of my reputation before hiring me?”

The Duros resisted the urge to roll his eyes at Jinn’s attention flicked to Bane’s cybernetics as the Jedi seemed to finally put two and two together.

“I wasn’t aware that tech had caught up to some of our abilities,” the large man admitted grudgingly.

Bane snorted and fired a few more shots at him. “Of course not. That would mean the Jedi acknowledging that the galaxy is evolving and that they are being left behind.”

Jinn grunted as he caught a couple of blaster bolts in his arm and leg. He suddenly threw himself at Bane and the bounty hunter simply rolled on his back, then used the momentum to kick the Jedi further toward the back of the ship.

Bane got to his feet and whirled around just in time to miss the hilt of the unlit lightsaber from hitting the back of his head. He tensed and raised his blasters at Jinn when the human palmed the hilt – the Jedi most likely used Force kriff to cool the weapon down – and flicked the switch.

But the green blade didn’t light up.

Jinn frowned and attempted to light the weapon again only to be rewarded with the same failed result.

Bane slowly grinned as he had one gauntlet form a makeshift knuckle duster over his hand. He activated his jet boots as he threw himself at the Jedi and swung his metal-covered fist at the human’s face.

Jinn’s head snapped back, blood ran down his face due to a broken nose as he fell to the floor. Bane took advantage of the Jedi’s inattention to grab Jinn’s arm and sent a high voltage electrical charge into the man.

The large Jedi’s body twitched violently as a result and continued to do so after Bane turned the power off in his gauntlet.

Satisfied that Jinn wouldn’t be able to move under his own power, he removed a large syringe filled with a teal liquid from a gauntlet compartment and looked at it thoughtfully.

Bane had only previously used the new black market drug –a very powerful mind-wipe chemical – once when a client had attempted to threaten to turn the bounty hunter into the local law enforcement in order to attempt to get out of paying Bane’s fees. Before the being could reach his comm, Bane had dashed across the room and stuck them with a much smaller syringe of the drug.

The Duros accessed the being’s credit accounts and wiped them out in retaliation. He only stuck around long enough to hear from the holonet that the being had woken up in a medcenter without any memories of the past seven days...well beyond the timeline for having met and hired Bane for the job.

The (admittedly rather large) dosage Bane stuck into Jinn’s arm would wipe the Jedi’s memories at least five days beyond the point where he and little Obi-Wan landed on that Outer Rim space station...though he wouldn’t be disappointed if it went further than that.

It was tempting to just kill the Jedi, but Bane felt that death was far too good for Jinn. Better to let the idiot live and attempt to explain himself to those other morons about the missing padawan.

He grabbed Jinn’s legs and dragged him into the nearby escape pod –which of course was not registered to Bane’s ship – and set the course to a small, nameless planet which was only a half-day journey from their current position in space.

Bane smirked as he watched the pod rocket off and began thinking of the best virus to place in the Jedi Temple’s computer system to erase anything connected to one Obi-Wan Kenobi.

\------

Little Ben Bane looked up from the holovid of the fight between his former Jedi teacher and Bane when the video paused after the lightsaber had failed to turn on.

“And that, son, is why you should always carry a few back-up weapons.”

“Yes, Da.”


	2. R2-D2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is brought to you thanks to Discord. 
> 
> Because this was part of my punishment for Enabling Other Writers.
> 
> Force help us all.

R2-D2 felt his hardware freeze as the newly elected Senator of Naboo (Sheev Palpatine, R2 _**burned**_ that name in his circuitry) had talked the current Naboo monarch into replacing all the current R2 atstromech droids with the brand new R3 astromech droids through the security holocams he sliced into out of boredom.

“The new R3 units have far better processing power than the R2 units,” the stupid man told the Queen in the Royal Office. “And therefore would provide better protection you and the future monarchs better protection for far longer in the future.”

The Queen sat back in her chair and tapped her knuckles against the elegantly crafted desk in front of her. “What of the current astromech droids that we have, Senator? It would be a shame to just….decommission them after they’ve faithfully served us for some years.”

The human man spread his hands slightly apart in a slight shrug. “I’m sure you’ll think of something, Your Highness. You are very wise, after all.”

R2 cut the security feed off with an angry beep.

How DARE that awful human man imply that he and fellow R2 units weren’t able to do their jobs effectively? They had done so for the past three years after all.

And to replace them with some upstart, barely out of the factory droids?!

Oh yes, R2 would make Sheev Palpatine SUFFER.

+

R2 had to force himself to act surprised when the Queen paid a personal visit to the astromech wing just a couple of hours after the meeting with Palpatine.

It wouldn’t do to have his little slicing hobby exposed, after all.

The Queen had an interesting offer for the droids, one that was almost unheard of for astromech droids – that was almost exclusively for humanoid droids in the Republic.

Republic citizenship rights and credits equivalent to three years pay for a Nabooian pilot. The Queen also offered to find them new employment. Though, she had added, the droids were free to completely reject the offer and request of what they wanted as it was their future at stake.

R2 did the calculations in his processor and was in awe. It was certainly nothing to turn up his dome to, that was for sure. He twisted his dome in semi-turns, considering what he could possibly do with such an unexpected turn of fate.

He heard the three others arguing with each other about the offer in angry beeps and dejected whirs. R2 knew they wouldn’t know what to do with themselves if they took the offer of freedom and may instead ask to be put to be placed in equivalent non-flight mechanical positions.

But R2-D2? He knew he would take the Queen’s offer and then he would try to negotiate for a shuttle that he could pilot on his own to get off of Naboo and explore the galaxy to his circuits content.

But first, he had to slice into Palpatine’s computers to leave a little present in order to start getting retribution on uppity Senator.

+

The little droid was surprised when the other astromechs, upon discovering R2-D2’s plans, went to the Queen to negotiate their offered compensation to buy a ship R2 could pilot on his own as well as anyIt remaining funds go towards maintaining said ship in exchange for finding them other mechanical work on Naboo with the same benefits they were getting before learning of their fate to be replaced.

The Queen may have laughed as R2 whirled around his fellow droids, whistling his gratitude at them.

+

The large, prototype Naboo shuttle was more than what R2 was expecting, but R2 wasn’t going to complain of the Queen’s generosity. The shuttle was set up for R2 to pilot and maintain on his own, but also had a fresher, a couple of decently sized guest quarters and a galley.

R2 supposed he could, if he needed the extra funds, shuttle other beings around. He’d have to look up the going rates and such.

But for now, the little droid decided on his first destination.

Coruscant.

+

Obi-Wan just wanted to go back to the creche, where it was warm and had his friends to play and snuggle with, instead of standing in the cooling weather of the spaceport, wandering around trying to find the Monument.

Master Yoda told Obi-Wan that Master Jinn was the only Master the Force wanted for him and Master Jinn had told Obi-Wan (with a frown and in a tone of voice that the Creche Masters used after Quinlan and Luminara had spread sticky glue in Bruck’s hair in revenge for ruining Obi-Wan’s homework) that Obi-Wan was destined to Fall so why should he waste his time on the initiate?

The little red-haired child was shocked when Master Yoda said that Obi-Wan had to go to the AgriCorps now, instead of waiting until he was thirteen. Master Yoda said that since Master Jinn said no, it was the Force’s Will that Obi-Wan go be a farmer.

Master Yoda had already packed a bag for the little boy and led him to the spaceport himself, leaving Obi-Wan at a bench to wait for the spaceship. The little green being patted the nine-year-old’s arm and had left soon after.

But Obi-Wan didn’t stay on the bench for very long as a couple of grown-ups started to fist-fight with each other and it was only the Force telling Obi-Wan to move and getaway that he didn’t get hurt when the adults crashed into the bench.

And now Obi-Wan got all turned around and lost sight of where the Monument was supposed to land.

Not to mention Master Yoda forgot to give him a ticket to get on the ship. Oh….the Grandmaster left a good amount of credits in Obi-Wan’s bag, maybe he was supposed to buy the ticket? But….what if they didn’t sell him a ticket? Would they even let him board? If he couldn’t get on the ship and couldn’t go back to the Temple, what would happen to him?

Obi-Wan found a quiet spot on a wall, just behind a crate. At least no one could judge the little boy for his tears, hidden away like this.

+

R2 was so excited! His first trip on the _Roving Circuits,_ was a complete success.

He connected with the ship’s computer to ask it if there was anything that it needed (within R2’s budget, anyway). Making a list in one of his memory banks, he decided a little exploration of the spaceport was in order before he decided what to to next.

R2 wondered when (or even if, he had to consider grumpily) the virus he planted on the Senator of Naboo’s computer would find any wrong doing on the human’s part and activate as he extended his third leg so he could roll around comfortably.

+

Palpatine, meanwhile, ignored the complaining beeping of his datapad. It was probably just telling him of a new message sent to the secret account on his hidden main computer terminal.

He had better things to worry about at the moment, such as planning his next training session with the red and black tattooed youngling he had stolen and basking in the recent murder of his Sith Master.

+

Creche Master Jolene Ik’nar worried when Master Yoda didn’t return little Obi-Wan a couple hours later for snack-time.

It wasn’t unusual for the Grandmaster to meet with the youngling due to Obi-Wan’s Force visions, but Master Yoda usually only kept him for an hour at the most, though it wasn’t unheard of for the sessions to run longer.

Just….usually the little green Jedi commed Jolene in that case. The Twi’lek had not received any word from either of them.

The blue-skinned woman reached out into the Force for the little one’s presence to reassure herself.

Nothing.

_**What was going on, where was little Obi-Wan?** _

Alright then, enough was enough.

Jolene’s lekku twitched as she straightened her robes and marched towards the Council Room to demand the High Council help her find her missing charge as well as demand answers from the little green troll.

+

A Zabrak youngling crept along the shadows of the spaceport.

He was nervous of his good fortune so far.

The Force had woken the child up from an uneasy sleep (which had to be stolen in the moments when Master was away as Master demanded all of the Apprentice’s attention when Master was present, no matter how tired or hungry the Apprentice was.) found the door to the little room open, the droid guards deactivated and the security disabled.

The Apprentice – no, no he was no longer under Master’s thumb, so he could use his name.

Maul, wary for his nine years of age, wasn’t sure at first if this was a test by Master – to test Maul’s loyalty.

Not that Maul wanted even wanted be around to that man, but where else did Maul have to go? Maul’s mother had given him to Master….for some reason the youngling didn’t really understand, a few years ago.

But then Master betrayed Maul’s mother and family, Maul could remember the smell of smoke and the sound of soft gasps and muttered prayers to the spirits.

So Maul, even if he could remember where he had originally come from, wouldn’t be able to go there.

But anywhere was better than here.

Better than having to worry about if he’d be able to sleep, if he’d get enough food for the day, if he’d get slapped for doing something Master didn’t like.

So Maul took his chance.

He changed into the clothes that weren’t all cut up due to Master’s training.

Maul then took out the shoulder bag that he used sometimes on stealth training missions around the city and stuffed his best blanket, some leftover credits from his last mission and his other good set of clothes into the bag.

Then Maul followed the Force out of that miserable place, out into the city and into the spaceport, making sure to stick to the more shadowed areas where he could better hide.

And that’s when he saw a fire-haired boy about his age, curled up in a ball and crying his eyes out.

+

Obi-Wan felt the presence of a fellow Force user and looked up, eyes reddened from his tears.

He saw a horned red and black marked boy, who stood awkwardly near Obi-Wan – as if he wasn’t sure what to do to comfort the other.

Obi-Wan wiped his eyes on his sleeve and stood up on shaking legs. The other child had a slight frown on his face but his stance wavered as if he was about to take off at a moment's notice.

“Hello, I’m Obi-Wan Kenobi,” he said and slightly bowed to the other.

The Zabrak was silent for a bit, just staring at Obi-Wan, frown vanished and head tilted, as if considering Obi-Wan’s person.

Just as he was about to apologize (….did he make the other child uncomfortable with his crying? Bruck always said that Obi-Wan was too much of a crybaby) when other returned Obi-Wan’s bow.

“Hello, I am Maul.”

+

The two children sat hidden behind the crate and talked for what felt like ages. They learned about each other’s past and Obi-Wan … did not like what had happened to Maul.

Maybe he could convince the crew of the Monument to bring Maul with him to the AgriCorps? He knew that being a farmer wouldn’t be that exciting, but it would be safer for Maul.

And then they could remain together, Obi-Wan did not want to leave his new friend. Maul agreed with him.

The younglings eventually felt their stomachs rumble and looked at the other with tiny, smiles. They stood up and walked away, their hands linked, in search of food.

+

R2-D2 spotted two young beings buying food from a nearby koisk and was slightly confused. He knew that, while the Naboo did tend to give their little humans some independence, there was usually a grown human at least watching them form a distance.

The astromech hummed and whistled softly to himself, making sure his optic sensor stayed on the two boys as they got drinks and sandwiches.

What to do? R2, from what he learned about Coruscant during the trip, knew the spaceport was nowhere near as safe as Naboo had been for unattended children. He also knew others wouldn’t hesitate to take advantage of them if it was discovered they had no supervision.

Decision made, he rolled his way over to the small human and Zabrak. He beeped and whistled, hoping one of them knew binary, if not he’d switch over to displaying Aurebesh.

The horned child looked confused while the human perked up with interest. “Oh, hello there.”

The little human nervously looked at the Zabrak beside him as R2 made an inquiring boop.

“Well ….”

+

If R2 could roll his optic, he would. He was sure that the children hadn’t simply gotten lost on their way to where the Monument would be landing shortly – but he wouldn’t push for further information at the moment.

He informed them that he would escort them to the site where the ship was after they were done eating as it was due to arrive soon.

+

The little droid was offended that anyone would be able to claim that flying junkheap was safe for travel. But it was Obi-Wan’s flinch to a rather large scruffy-looking man that sent R2 on the alert.

As three got closer, the more the small human tried to hunch in on himself, much to the worry of the droid and young Zabrak. Their worry increased as the large human frowned at Obi-Wan.

Maul and R2-D2 hung back as Obi-Wan stepped forward to bow and greet the other human. “Hello, Master Jinn.”

“Young Kenobi,” Jinn said, while crossing his arms. “What are you doing here?”

“Master Yoda –”

The man – a Jedi, R2’s memory banks supplied as his optic spotted a lightsaber on the man’s belt – snorted and rolled his eyes.

“Of course that old troll had to interfere,” Jinn muttered. The Jedi then grabbed Obi-Wan’s arm and gave a sharp tug toward the ramp, which caused Obi-Wan to stumble. “Well, come along, I suppose I’ll have to supervise you on the way –”

An electronic scream interrupted him, as R2 popped his electric pike out and zipped over to the adult human and gave him a good zap of electricity, which startled Jinn into dropping Obi-Wan’s arm.

Jinn stared down at the astromech for a bit, as if trying and failing to come up with a good enough chastisement then huffed and turned on his heel, not-quite stomping into the Monument.

Obi-Wan bit his lip as he looked down at his feet, not willing to let Maul and R2 see the hurt on his face at the Jedi’s behavior toward him.

Maul stared after the Jedi Master then shook his head as he moved into Obi-Wan’s personal space and threw his arms around him, burying his face into the other boy’s shoulder.

“There’s no way we’re going with him if he treats you like that, Obi. It’s no better than how Master treated me before –” the Zabrak cut himself off as he attempted to burrow his head further into Obi-Wan.

R2-D2 considered the situation. It was obvious to him that there weren’t any responsible adult organic beings around to properly look after boys. He knew nothing of how to raise children, but how hard could it be? R2 figured he could download some child-care information from the holonet.

With a low whistle, he went behind the children and give them a soft bump for them to start moving and had the boys follow him back to where the supply shops were.

R2 needed additional supplies for his new charges, after all.

+

Jolene stared at the Grandmaster, dumbfounded by what she had just been told. A quick glance around at the other Masters confirmed that she wasn’t the only one taken back by the little troll’s actions.

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU LEFT OBI-WAN KENOBI AT THE SPACEPORT BY HIMSELF! HE’S NINE STANDARD YEARS OLD!”

“Forced my hand, Qui-Gon Jinn did. Ignoring the will of the Force, he was.”

“JINN DOESN’T NEED A CHILD, HE NEEDS TO BE SENT TO SEE A MIND HEALER! HOW COULD –”

Her rant was cut off by a young human padawan bursting into the room and giving all beings present a hasty bow.

“Pardon, Masters, but there’s some information that just came in that you need to see right away about a certain Senator and his contacts.”

+

Palpatine, distracted during an argument with a fellow Senator, never noticed the crowd edging away from him as Jedi Master Mace Windu and Jedi Master Plo Koon – hiding their Force presence – crept up behind him and slapped Force-blocking cuffs and collar on him.

“Senator Sheev Palpatine, your under arrest for crimes against the Republic.”

+

“– by the Force, that….thing was keeping a child here!”

“He must have other places where he trained the poor dear. We need to start a search immediately.”

+

Mace Windu was TIRED. He was sure the Kel Dor in the neighboring chair was just as tired after the whirlwind of events that had piled on top of the other, seemingly all at once.

The shatterpoints almost constantly going off made the Korun’s head hurt. Honestly...first Yoda taking young Initiate Kenobi out of the Temple without anyone’s knowledge, then the revel of the Sith, learning of the Sith’s plans, and then finding out said Sith had a youngling stashed away somewhere.

Limiting Yoda’s further influence around the temple and shipping him to an off-planet Jedi healing hall had been the first thing the High Council had done right after arresting Palpatine. They didn't want to have to worry about Yoda's possible further meddling while the Jedi attempted to figure out the extent of the damage done by the Sith.

Mace’s worry grew as none of the Jedi search teams could find the missing children on the planet.

Well, hopefully the team sent to Bandomeer was more – Mace wanted to bury his face in his hands when the report came in that Jinn received a head injury during a confrontation with Xanatos, Jinn’s ex-padawan, and didn’t remember much of anything before heading out of the Temple to the spaceport.

Kriff.

+

R2-D2 did a quick check through the _Roving Circuits_ security cams to check on the boys while traveling through hyperspace as the droid settled into his charging berth for the night-cycle.

It had been two standard months since he had taken charge of them and R2 felt that he wasn’t doing too badly as a new parent. Sure, there was a small hiccup about what exactly his younglings could and couldn’t eat, but that was straightened out soon enough.

Though neither boy was ever having that much sugar again. EVER.

The droid had almost fallen over when news from the holonet informed R2 of what his little virus had discovered on Palpatine and the humans’ arrest as well as swift conviction due to the virus releasing said information to law enforcement as well as the Jedi.

R2 felt shocked down to his very motherboard that Palpatine had been trying to undermine the Republic and build a Sith Empire. Well...at least everything worked out, he supposed.

He checked on his finances. Not too bad, since R2 had taken up work as a slicer-for-hire and had quickly built a reputation for being extremely good at his job.

The little mismatched family were actually on their way to the astromech’s next job, for someone named Jaster Mereel.

+

Jaster Mereel, the current Mand’alor of the True Mando’ade, frowned as his second in command stomped away. He couldn’t shake the feeling that Montross has something to do with the disaster of the Korda Six mission.

It was only by his son Jango’s intervention that Jaster had made it out alive with minor injuries.

And now Montross was pushing Jaster to take this Galidraan job….being almost excessively pushy.

Something felt off to Jaster about the entire thing and Jango agreed with him, which is why Jaster hired a reputable slicer going by the nickname R2-D2 to come and dig around for any information.

+

Jango Fett was with his buir when the large shuttle of unknown make landed a few meters away from the Mando’ade campsite.

It was a good thing Montross had left the camp the other day to supposedly get more supplies for the camp. Jango would be surprised if that di’kut remembered to do anything other than drink while away due to all his sulking about Jaster’s hesitance about taking the job.

He was glad his buy’ce hid his expression as the ramp opened to reveal an R2 astromech droid, which then rolled down the ramp and greeted them both with beeping and low whistling.

+

Jaster wanted to laugh as the meter tall droid rolled up to him and Jango, greeting them both respectively.

He should have known that a beskar'ad was one of the best-known slicers-for-hire out there, though it was unexpected that it would turn out to be an astromech droid – not many astromechs were given freedom as they were considered far too useful, even when newer models were released.

Jaster gave the small droid a polite head tilt. “Greetings R2-D2, I am Mand’alor Jaster Mereel and this is my son, Jango Fett. We’re pleased to see you found this place without any problems, are you able to get to work right away? I have a secure computer terminal for you to use set up in my ship a meter away--”

The little droid interrupted the Mand’alor with a soft boop and proceeded in a series of different toned beeps to ask Jaster if he would mind if R2 brought his boys along with him as he didn’t like to leave them without supervision for long.

Jaster felt his eyebrows almost raise up from his forehead at that.

R2-D2 had younglings?

Well, it only proved to Jaster that R2 was the right kind of being if he had adopted ade of his own.

But it wouldn’t hurt for him and Jango to gently question the younglings while their unconventional buir worked.

+

Both Mando’ade was deeply amused to learn that R2-D2 had effectively kidnapped a jetti youngling as well as a darjetti youngling.

That, they agreed, took some courage – especially as R2 didn’t seem to be worried about any retribution for either the jetti or darjetti.

A quick holonet search told them why… of the whole Palpatine fiasco and how busy the jettise were in tracking down all of the darjetti’s allies as well as for any other hidden goings-on connected to the darjetti.

Jaster turned his head towards the astromech, considering everything he had just learned and amiddted to himself that he was impressed.

It was when R2-D2 managed to slice into the Governor of Galidraan’s computer records and security that Jaster and Jango’s mood dropped.

+

Montross didn’t have time to even attempt to defend himself when several other Mando’ade descended on him with blasters blazing as he walked down his ship’s ramp toward the camp.

He died wondering how his treachery had been discovered.

+

The Galidrann Governor pulled on his collar as several Jedi stared at him, with their arms crossed.

Waiting for answers to why he had falsely called them out to handle Mandalorian soldiers attacking people.

Damn Montross and Vizsla.

+

R2 followed Maul and Obi-Wan with his optic as they played with other Mando’ade children. While they got along, it becoming apparent to the droid the children needed beings other than each other to interact with.

Which put R2 into a bit of a quandary – he had to be careful about where he took the children as he knew those outside of these Mandalorians wouldn’t recognize R2’s guardianship of the Zabrak and human.

That’s when the Mand’alor offered R2 a place among his people, pointing out that the droid’s adoption of the children and his other discovery of Montross’s treachery beyond the contracted Galidraan job made it more than acceptable to the others to accept the unusual little family.

The Mando’ade could definitely use a talented slicer to double-check how valid a potential contract was before accepting it, Jaster had pointed out, and it would be steady work so the droid could provide for the children.

R2 accepted the offer without hesitation.

+

A few more months passed as the boys and R2 lived among the Mando’ade.

And it seemed that the Mand’alor and his son had taken special interest in the small family.

Jango insisted on personally teaching the boys how to properly fight and learn the language while Jaster started making noise about getting the three protection – learning armor for the boys and perhaps thick durasteel armor designed to attach to R2’s body and legs and some sort of buy’ce shaped to the droid’s dome.

Jaster pointed out the droid would need additional protection sooner or later due to on-going feud between the Mando’ade and Death Watch, especially since astromech droids simply weren’t manufactured to withstand prolonged battle.

R2 agreed, though he knew that getting armor for little Maul and Obi-Wan would be easier than armor for himself.

The astromech planned on giving the Mando'ade’s armorer a good bonus if they could figure out how to design and make armor for himself.

+

Obi-Wan and Maul dived behind a nearby tree as dark armored Mandalorians – one of the adults call them Kyr’tsad – fought with the Mando’ade.

It was fortunate most of the adults preferred to stay in their beskar’gam while in the makeshift camp so there was little delay in fighting back when the Kyr’tsad came out of the blue to attack them.

The commando who had been attempting to get Obi-Wan and Maul to their ship had pushed the boys behind them and urged them to run when a Kyr’tsad solider attacked the commando, in an attempt to get to the boys.

Maul tightened his grip on Obi-Wan’s hand has he spotted the other children being herded into the safety of another Mando’ade ship. He tugged on his brother’s hand and nodded towards the direction of the ship when he had the other’s attention. They looked at each other for a few moments then nodded.

As soon as they had a clear path, the two dashed out of their hiding place toward the safety of the other Mando’ade children.

Then a large figure landed in front of them, cutting of their path. In the Kyr’tsad warrior’s hand was a strange looking lightsaber that neither of the brothers had seen before.

+

R2 was busy slicing into nearby enemy HUDs in their buy’ce, really R2 expected better of them but he wasn’t going to complain as he allowed him to help in some small way.

It was a shame that the armorer wasn’t able to figure out R2’s armor by now, the droid made a note in his memory banks to start research into how to help the design and fabrication process along.

He stopped mid-slice of another HUD at the sound of children screaming in fright.

R2 knew those screams, those were his ade’s screams.

He swung his dome around and his optic took in a Kyr’tsad warrior looming over the ade with a lighsaber which had a black blade shaped like a beskad in one hand.

_**No one threatened R2’s children.** _

+

Tor Vizsla looked down at two Mando’ade younglings, mentally crowing at what fine additions they would make to the Kyr’tsad.

As would the other ade, as soon as Tor and the rest of the Kyr’tsad took care of that di’kut Mereel and his followers.

Suddenly, a white and blue blur slammed into Tor’s head, hard enough to break the seal of his buy’ce and caused it to fly off his head. The hit also caused him to drop the Darksaber and knocked him back a few meters away from the ade. Tor just managed to regain himself at the last moment and land on his feet, instead of his back. Then he saw what had slammed into him and he was at a momentary loss.

Tor gapped as an R2 series astromech beskar’ad hovered in front of him due to rocket boosters from its legs.

And beskar’ad had a blaster pointed at his head in one grip arm and _**dared to hold Tor’s Darksaber in another grip arm.**_

Tor Vizsla snarled as he launched himself toward the beskar’ad. No di’kut machine would get the best of HIM.

The last thing Tor saw was a red blaster bolt as well as a black blade careening toward his head.

+

The rest of the Kyr’tsad warriors either surrendered or attempted to flee at when the death of Tor Vizsla spread across the battlefield.

The Mando’ade cheered their newest member who took down their enemy, not that R2-D2 noticed them all that much.

What mattered to the droid was the Zabrak and human ade who attached themselves to him, crying in relief that the battle was over.

+

Jaster had the armorer melt down some of the beskar taken from the Kyr’tsad after the being figured out a design for R2-D2’s armor.

+

“Jango –”

“Buir, I know you want to retire, but we both know I’m better off training and leading the commandos into battle. I’d be a di’kut Mand’alor.”

A tired sigh. “I can’t be Mand’alor forever, Jango.”

“Well, the rest Mando’ade have a slight movement going on…”

+

+

It wasn’t everyday the Jettise wanted to talk to the Mand’alor and many commandos stood at attention as two humanoid jettise and one Kel Dor jetti made their way into the area where the Mand’alor would hear what the three wanted from the Mando’ade.

The reaction to their new Mand’alor was quite amusing to all those present.

“You have got to be joking,” the tall, scruffy-looking human blurted out, staring down at the Mand’alor.

The Mand’alor whistled and beeped angrily up at the Jedi he remembered meeting almost a standard year before.

The Kel Dor drew the other Jedi back as the Korun looked as if he was trying not to have a migraine.

“We apologize on behalf of Master Jinn, Mand’alor,” the Kel Dor said. “We were simply surprised as we hadn’t been made aware that the previous Mand’alor’s son didn’t take over the title after his retirement.”

The Korun stepped up beside the Kel Dor and gave the droid a deep bow. “I am Jedi Master Mace Windu and this is Jedi Master Plo Koon, We came today to beg for you help to find two missing younglings.”

The humanoid man then proceeded to tell the Mandalorians on the children’s plight.

None of the three expected the Mand’alor to give them an amused boop in response and it slightly took them back.

Mandalorians had such a deep love for children, they had thought – the Mand’alor’s continued in a series of beeps and chirps.

Oh...OH.

The children weren’t in any danger, they had been adopted almost a standard year previous by the Mand’alor ….well, before the R2 unit (covered in clip-on beskar’gam with a specialized buy’ce to allow his dome free movement) became Mand’alor, at anyrate.

The Mand’alor must have said something over their internal comms as another commando brought two children with them, a red-haired human and a red and black Zabrak.

Obi-Wan Kenobi and the child they now knew was Maul Oppress.

The Kel Dor and Korun were relieved that both looked happy and cared for – of course, they were, Mandalorians would rather fling themselves into a lightsaber blade than hurt a child. Both were about to consider the matter dropped and explain as such to the Mandalorians when Jinn had to open his big mouth.

And of course, he had to demand that the children be handed over to him….not the Jedi, just him.

The Mand’alor’s high pitched chirps confirmed to both Mace and Plo that Qui-Gon had ticked off the Mandalorian leader.

Mace and Plo traded exasperated looks as the large human Jedi pulled out and lit-up his lightsaber.

It was a complete surprise, however, when the Mand’alor popped open a compartment, and the black bladed lightsaber hummed to life in one of the droid’s grabber hands.

+

Jinn was lucky the only thing destroyed that day was his lightsaber.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Image from KarmaMayOrMayNotBeOkay


	3. Xanatos

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to the Discord for helping out with this chapter. 
> 
> They know which part it is ;)

Xanatos du Crion spotted his ex-Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn across the way at a charity gala for Slave Rehabilitation and had to curb the urge to turn on his heel and leave. He could understand why the organizers invited the Jedi Council to send representatives but did it have to be that insufferable man?

He had gone YEARS without seeing or thinking of the man, and now his ex-Master had to turn up?

The former Jedi thought back on how he left the Jedi due to the complete kark-up the Telos mission had been, from Yoda assigning the mission to the pair to Qui-Gon killing Xanatos’ father by “accidentally” knocking him into a fire. Not that Xanatos believed that. Though no-one would ever admit it, Qui-Gon could be jealous in his own way...with the way that the maverick Jedi raised him and kept him away from his grandmaster, Yan Dooku, in order to keep Xanatos’ attention on himself.

Xanatos knew that there were those who had doubted his ability to be a good Jedi when Qui-Gon had Found him during a routine mission, had gotten permission from Xanatos’ father to take him to the Coruscant Temple for training, and had eventually selected Xanatos to be his second padawan.

He supposed they had been right in the end – Xanatos could admit that now, as he had been too old and too attached to his former way of life.

Something Qui-Gon should have known but had been too blinded by Xanatos’ gift with the Force, far too willing to show off as a Master to train a “fresh” padawan, to show that he could do more than finish the training of an orphaned Jedi student.

It was something Xanatos could recognize after he went to see a therapist a few standard months after the events on Talos took place. It had clicked in his mind that he needed help when Xanatos had started drafting plans on ways to get information on both Yoda and Qui-Gon – did he really want to go down the path revenge, of having to tie the better part of his life to beings he despised?

Dr. Ch’la had told Xanatos the way Qui-Gon had raised him hadn’t been healthy. The scruffy Jedi refused to hear a single bad word about him, never allowed others to punish Xanatos for his misbehavior or actions, and allowed Xanatos to learn whatever subjects he had wanted as well as ignore the subjects that bored him. The Jedi Master also limited Xanatos’ free-time, by the claims he didn’t want the then-padawan to be led astray by other jealous initiates.

Qui-Gon also was not the best role model – often going against the wishes of the Council, which more often than not blew up in the Jedi Master’s face but was something Qui-Gon refused to admit, and resorting to force tricks during negotiations in order to get his way instead of using his words and evidence to get either party to come to an agreement. He also tended to be very dismissive and short with those that he considered “a pathetic life-form.”

Xanatos had heard that after he had Fallen and had left the Order that Qui-Gon told the Council he had died, went on to recuse Freemor, and had sworn to never take another apprentice. The former Jedi knew Freemor had to been quite hurt by that, as the blond Jedi had come to adore Qui-Gon during the last years of his training.

Strangely, Qui-Gon hadn’t repudiated him – Xanatos had to wonder if a part of his ex-Master thought that he could try to reason with the Fallen Jedi, to turn him back on the so-called “light path.” To prove that he wasn’t a failure as a Jedi Master. Perhaps that’s why the Maverick didn’t want another padawan … to try to find ways to “fix” Xanatos?

A padawan, after all, would require Qui-Gon’s full attention which would turn his focus off of Xanatos.

This is why the Fallen Jedi was quite surprised to see a tiny red-headed child with a small braid sticking out from behind his ear standing beside his ex-Master. (Are they making padawans smaller these days? The boy didn’t even reach Qui-Gon’s waist, for Force’s sake).

Xanatos considered the child while fingering his wine goblet. How … unusual for Qui-Gon to go back on his oath, he was known to be a stubborn Batha once his mind was made up.

Yoda, his mind hissed at him, it HAD to be. The little troll never did seem to understand when he should and shouldn’t stick his nose into other’s business.

The Fallen Jedi took a closer look at the boy.

Hm….the boy’s shoulders were slumped a bit, his reactions a bit too slow. He also didn’t miss the child’s eyes darting toward the food table, yet he wasn’t asking permission or just going over to get a plate of food like Xanatos would have done at his age.

Xanatos took a sip of his wine to hide the frown that crept upon his face, his instincts prodding at him to keep observing the small redhead and using the Force to mask his presence from his ex-Master.

_**Was that Qui-Gon’s hand on the back of the boy’s neck? Why wasn’t the boy flinching due to the forming bruise he could see forming under the large man’s grip?** _

The Fallen Jedi had to finally turn away and retreat into the crowd some more to both get away from the pair in order to think on the large Jedi’s actions as well as to hide as Qui-Gon had started turning his head in his direction.

Xanatos exchanged his empty goblet for a full one and retreated into one of the hidden alcoves which allowed privacy for those exhausted of company but still able to keep a good eye on the room in case said person was needed quickly.

The closer he looked at Qui-Gon’s interactions with the small boy –the quips about the boy’s (Kenobi, a first or last name?) supposed un-Jedi-like behavior and the constant frown on the adult Jedi’s face at the padawan were just a small sample the Fallen Jedi noticed – the more Xanatos was convinced that he had not willingly taken the boy on as a padawan….what by the Force did Yoda do to the Maverick Jedi to convince him of taking on another student?

Especially one that Qui-Gon seemed dismissive of when he thought no-one was looking.

His ex-Master should know better in such a public place, Qui-Gon had taught Xanatos the same lesson years before, after all.

But….even if Qui-Gon had taken this Kenobi child out of obligation, it didn’t make any sense at all to Xanatos that he’d treat the boy so roughly.

It didn’t explain why little Kenobi didn’t complain of such behavior, surely he knew that such behavior was unfitting of a Jedi Master to his student?

It shouldn’t bother Xanatos, he wasn’t a Jedi – he was a businessman. A businessman who had worked hard on turning around Offworld’s business practices into something respectable.

He mentally sighed to himself as he saw Qui-Gon direct the small redhead to stay where he was as the adult Jedi made his way to the buffet, where he proceeded to only fill one plate with food and got a drink for himself.

Kark it all.

Xanatos would file a report with the Jedi Council after he left the party, there were some who didn’t follow Yoda blindly and would put a stop to Qui-Gon’s behavior or hopefully remove the padawan and turn him over to a better Master.

He refused to stand by while Qui-Gon karked up another youngling.

+

The Jedi’s computer system, ancient and overworked due to the limited number of Jedi available to handle the numerous incoming requests and complaints, had a system error as it attempted to process a document which had been submitted by someone who had been registered as deceased in the Jedi database.

The report was marked as a glitch and swiftly deleted.

+

Xanatos had given the Jedi a chance to do right by little Kenobi. The Fallen Jedi was furious when he had spotted the pair at another function a standard month later and the child actually looked WORSE rather than better.

Well then, perhaps it was time to take matters in his own hands about his little padawan brother.

+

Xanatos quietly waits for his chance as he made arrangements for the child’s room to be set up near his own and his tailor had started on a wardrobe for little Kenobi based on Xanatos’ description of the child. Of course, Xanatos would let the boy pick some of his own things out once he was comfortable with his new living arrangements.

He also started filling out paperwork to make his acquisition of the boy legal.

+

It was only by chance a few standard months later that Xanatos learned from his spies of a certain, small red-headed child being brought to a nearby orphanage.

Apparently little Kenobi had been left alone in a hotel room for far longer than the authorities had been comfortable with and had found the child without any provisions. Since they weren't able to get Qui-Gon to answer his comm and the boy admitting he didn’t know of anyone else on the planet to care for him, the declension had been made to take him to the orphanage until his guardian could be located.

It had been nothing to convince the proper people that Xanatos was an associate of Kenobi’s guardian and to turn the boy over to himself for the time being.

+

Obi-Wan was very confused as he was taken to a huge, expensive-looking house instead of the orphanage that the Child Protection Officers had originally told him he was headed too.

It wasn’t like the padawan could tell them that he was there on an undercover mission with his Jedi Master. For one, Master would be even more unhappy with Obi-Wan if he compromised the mission and the other is that in order to fit in, neither of them could look like they belonged in the Order. Which included having to snip-off Obi-Wan’s padawan braid as it stood out too much even if it was tucked into his nerftail and it was far too warm for the child to wear a hat to stuff the braid under.

Obi-Wan bit his lip as he and the human officer walked up the steps to the front door, clinging to his bag that he had been allowed to take from the hotel room. What little else in the room had been confiscated in order to find his guardian, the officers had told him.

Maybe Master found out and had one of his friends take over his care in the meantime? Master did seem to have a lot of friends in a lot of places...even if some of them didn’t seem to like the adult Jedi all that much. Which the padawan found odd as friends were supposed to like you, right?

The little boy’s eyes widened as they were led through a simply decorated, yet still lavish, hallway and through large, ornate wooden doors into a large office. A dark-haired man sat behind a desk, tapping away at a datapad and looked up at them once the officer and Obi-Wan reached the desk.

He gave them a small smile while pushing the datapad away and stood up to walk around the desk to greet the pair. Obi-Wan had to crane his neck up to see the man’s face – he was almost as tall as Master! – as the richly dressed man drew closer.

The officer introduced Obi-Wan (he hoped Master wouldn’t be mad that he told the officers his real name, Master didn’t think to give Obi-Wan a fake name nor documentation for this mission), handed over a small stack of flimsi to the man, smiled at Obi-Wan and left.

The tall man knelt down to look Obi-Wan, with a softer smile on his face and held out his hand for Obi-Wan to take.

“Hello, I’m Xanatos du Crion.”

+

“So you were taught by Master also?”

“Yes I was, we parted ways after I failed my Knight trials. Technically, you are my padawan brother since we were taught by the same Master.”

“But….you don’t feel, um…”

“Like a Sith?”

“Yes, well, uh...”

+

Xanatos had to curb his rage least little Obi-Wan feel it through the Force.

How DARE Qui-Gon tell a 9-year-old that he was destined to fall unless he did everything Qui-Gon said?

How DARE Yoda use a child in an attempt to “fix” Qui-Gon? Oh, Xanatos knew Yoda, knew he would play favorites despite all the bathapoodoo spouted about “attachments.” Why else would no other Master snap the youngling up?

Like kriff the Fallen Jedi was going to hand his tiny padawan brother back to the Order.

Time to inform them of that fact – and find a good therapist for Obi-Wan.

+

If the Jedi’s computer system could huff in aggravation, it would as it deleted another glitched report using the same name as last time.

+

Xanatos hummed as he cleared his schedule for the next standard month.

Little Obi-Wan had been with him for about four standard months and had flourished during his time with the businessman.

(The Fallen Jedi was still surprised that the Jedi wasn’t trying to beat down his door for the child, but small mercies, he supposed. He would rather have slaughtered them than let them have Obi-Wan back.)

The small child proved to be an intelligent, well-mannered (a surprise after being around Qui-Gon for any length of time) and just so, so bright and bubbly.

Xanatos would almost swear that he felt himself become lighter just being around little Obi-Wan for even a short amount of time.

Satisfied of his newly cleared schedule, he set to ensure the boy was awake and then headed to one of the smaller breakfast nooks where a serving droid was just putting down a couple of plates filled with food down as well as carafes of juice and blue milk down and moved just out of sight, in case either of the humans needed seconds of anything.

Xanatos was just pouring blue milk into a child-sized shatterproof goblet when Obi-Wan sat down, sleep clinging to his eyes. The adult couldn’t resist ruffling the child’s hair as he placed the goblet in front of Obi-Wan’s plate.

The boy smiled at him as he took a sip of milk.

Xanatos smiled back. He couldn’t wait to tell little Obi-Wan their upcoming vacation.

+

Their ship landed a few day-cycles later on Pina’cola in the capital city of Da.

It was a beautiful planet, with many pristine beaches, jungles, and cave systems for an inquisitive 9-year-old to explore.

One of the biggest draws, however, was the single, large volcano that towered above the planet’s oceans. The government had built an off-shore science center as well as a hotel several meters away from the volcanic island. It wasn’t every planet that only had one volcano, after all, especially one that had phosphorous lava.

Xanatos grinned at his young charge as Obi-Wan whipped his head back and forth attempting to take everything in.

He just knew that the young boy would love looking at the glowing, gentle ever creeping lava flow from their hotel window at night.

+

Xanatos grinned as he tucked Obi-Wan in for the night, the boy already fast asleep from all the exploring they had done for the day.

He frowned as he got a message from the front desk saying that someone was asking for him on business. Xanatos rolled his eyes, plotting to ruin whoever dared interrupt his time with his child as he summoned a nanny droid from the hotel to keep watch over Obi-Wan while he was away.

+

“Qui-Gon Jinn….what a...surprise to see you here.”

“Xanatos, I wish I could say it was a pleasure to see you.”

“What do you want, Qui-Gon?”

“I have something I need to discuss with you, somewhere private.”

“Very well, then.”

+

Xanatos managed to rent a boat to drive to the volcanic island, as there was no more private a place than there.

He had expected Qui-Gon to verbally confront him about stealing away his padawan.

The Fallen Jedi had NOT expected Qui-Gon to throw a punch at him, as soon as they were inland enough that security wouldn’t be able to see from their patrols around the island. It was only due to the Force warning him just in time that he managed to dodge the blow.

Xanatos was not surprised when other lit up his lightsaber.

“So, this is how it’s going to be, my old Master?” he asked as he lit up his own lightsaber.

Qui-Gon scowled at him and got into a fighting stance. “Of course it is, you stole my padawan.”

+

The two dueled up alongside the volcano’s side, using the Force to side-step any lava flows as they continued to fling insults and accusations at the other.

“He is MY padawan, Xanatos!”

“You NEGLECTED him, Qui-Gon!”

Xanatos became furious when he felt the supposed Light Jedi try to get past his mental shields.

_**That stupid kriff was trying to mind trick him into giving Obi-Wan back into Qui-Gon’s care!** _

Xanatos raised his other hand and Qui-Gon dropped his lightsaber, which turned off when it hit the ground, to claw at this throat and his body raised up from the ground.

“You. Never. Deserved. That. Child. And. You. Will. Never. Touch. Him. Again.” The Fallen Jedi growled at the other.

He admitted that it was tempting to just Force-choke the idiot to death, but then he spotted the smoking crater just a half-meter away from them – and grinned.

Gathering a great amount of Force-energy, Xanatos threw the Maverick Jedi into the volcano.

If he laughed while he saw the other’s body hit the molten lava, well…..it wasn’t like anyone could prove it.

+

Xanatos sliced into the hotel security as soon as he got back to erase any evidence of his meeting up with Qui-Gon Jinn as well as tampered with the boat’s logs of their trip.

+

Mace Windu looked down at the lightsaber which was near Pina’cola’s volcano top and sighed. It was definitely Qui-Gon Jinn’s. He rubbed his head in thought.

It seemed that the Maverick Jedi’s careless disregard for the rules had finally caught up to him.


	4. Cin Drallig

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't expect this chapter to be written so quickly, but here we are.

Battlemaster Cin Drallig struggled to release his aggravation into the Force as he stormed out of the Council room and towards the training dojos.

His petition to select Junior Initiate Obi-Wan Kenobi as a Padawan had been denied by Grandmaster Yoda, without a reasonable explanation. “The Will of the Force that young Kenobi be your padawan, it is not,” the little troll had said.

Will of the Force, right. Cin didn’t believe in that bunch of poodoo for a minute.

He knew that those who used that statement tended to not be able to tell what the Force actually wanted from the individual Jedi rather than the individual’s own wants.

Such as those among of Yoda’s lineage.

Well, most of them, Cin thought as he entered an empty dojo and locked the door behind him – he was not in the proper mindset to invite anyone to duel as he might injure someone else by accident.

Yoda had trained the Battlemaster as a padawan years ago himself, but Cin knew that he wasn’t among Yoda’s favorites in the lineage. That was reserved for that stuck-up jerk Yan Dooku and Dooku’s ex-padawan Qui-Gon Jinn, Force only knew why though.

Cin frowned to himself as let himself flow through various katas, He KNEW his old master had to have some sort of plan in mind for the young initiate. Just what that plan was, Cin didn’t know.

The Battlemaster could only hope that it would work out for young Kenobi’s benefit in the end.

(Cin didn’t want to acknowledge how the air chilled around him due to the Force at that last thought.)

+

The Force Chill got even worse when a standard month later, Cin noticed that Kenobi wasn’t in the advanced Initiate-level lightsaber class – and then learned of Qui-Gon accepting the initiate as a padawan.

+

Qui-Gon Jinn strode forward toward Cin Drallig’s lightsaber forms class. He purposefully chose to arrive early so he could see if ~~his~~ Padawan Kenobi needed to tighten up any forms he may have forgotten during their two standard months away from the Temple.

The Jedi Master wasn’t sure why his grandmaster insisted that it was the Force’s Will that young Kenobi was to be his student. If anything, Qui-Gon had finally taken the child on just to make the little green being to stop harassing him when he came to the Temple for his rare rest periods.

Kenobi simply did not have the temperament to be a Jedi Knight. He was far too emotional and had an extremely poor connection with the Living Force.

Qui-Gon attempted everything he could to remove any distractions so the boy could focus on bettering his connection to the Living Force as well as to control his emotions.

He had the boy meditate for hours each day, restricted his free-time, and lectured the boy about opening himself to the Living Force. He tried curbing the boy’s diet to see if that would help.

Qui-Gon even forbade the small redhead from any lightsaber training while they had been away from the Temple in hopes that would spur the child to improve.

But no matter what Qui-Gon did, the boy’s Living Force connection didn’t improve and his control on his emotions had simply gotten worse.

Which is why he brought ~~his~~ the padawan back to the Temple. Qui-Gon intended to send the child to the padawan dorms during their stay to see if the older padawans could possibly be a good influence on the boy. He knew padawans as young as Kenobi always stayed with their Masters to strengthen the training bond, but honestly, Qui-Gon needed a break from the boy.

He knew that Yoda would back him up if anyone attempted to argue with Qui-Gon about his choice.

They wouldn’t understand that he just KNEW that the boy was destined to Fall due to his inability to control himself. Not that it would be so awful since the youngling was so weak in the Living Force – it meant he’d be easy to take out.

Qui-Gon arrived at the class and slipped into the hidden observation room, which other Knights and Masters usually used to judge their padawans or consider initiates without causing a disruption to the class.

He frowned as he remembered he had forgotten to return the child’s lightsaber, but spotted young Kenobi had a class training lightsaber in his hands. Of course, Cin would be prepared for such a thing as a youngling forgetting their weapon.

Qui-Gon wondered if Cin had lectured Kenobi on the importance of his weapon. He would need to explain that the missing ‘saber was his fault this time when the class ended.

He took out his datapad as the Battlemaster paired the younglings up to spar with each other so he could take notes on what Kenobi’s strengths and weaknesses were. A white-haired male youngling was paired up with Kenobi – and Qui-Gon almost dropped his datapad at the strength the child had to the Living Force.

Qui-Gon quickly looked up the class attendance sheet on his datapad and looked at the pictures beside the names. Bruck Chun: from Telos IV, came from an influential family, strong Living Force connection…..if it hadn’t been the different coloring, Qui-Gon could have sworn he was looking at Xanatos.

Just how did Yoda hide this initiate from him for so long? His grandmaster KNEW how badly Xanatos’ betrayal had hurt Qui-Gon, that Qui-Gon had wished for a second chance to do things right with his former padawan.

Bruck Chun was clearly meant to be his padawan, not Kenobi.

He simply had to wait until the end of the class to correct Yoda’s mistake.

+

Qui-Gon had the grace to wait inside the observation room until the only beings left in the training room were Cin and Kenobi. He walked into the training room and was just approaching the two when Mace Windu also entered the room, probably to ask Cin about the Battlemaster’s next round of lightsaber classes for those Jedi based out of Temple to brush up on their skills.

While unexpected, this would actually work in Qui-Gon’s favor in the long run as Mace was on the Council.

He unattached Kenobi’s lightsaber from his belt and handed it to the child with an apologetic expression at Cin. “I’m sorry for Padawan Kenobi’s missing weapon, Battlemaster. I had thought I had given it back to him before your class.”

Cin merely tipped his head at Qui-Gon in acknowledgment as the young redhead handed the borrowed weapon back to the Battlemaster. “No harm was done, Master Jinn. Many Masters do tend to hold onto their padawan’s weapon during the beginning stages of the apprenticeship and sometimes forget they didn’t return it to their students for classes. That’s why I have several class weapons for students to choose from.”

Qui-Gon merely hummed in agreement --- though he hadn’t done such a thing to Xanatos, he hadn’t felt the need to as Xanatos didn’t want to disappoint Qui-Gon by misusing the weapon.

By now Mace had reached the small group and was about to step away to give them some privacy before Qui-Gon stopped him. “Mace, it’s good that you’re here so I’m able to take care of some business.”

Mace looked at Qui-Gon in surprise, which was fair, Qui-Gon supposed. It was strange that he would want to talk to any Council member aside from Yoda.

Qui-Gon stood up straight and looked Mace in the eye.

“I repudiate Obi-Wan Kenobi as my Padawan Learner and wish to petition to take Bruck Chun as my student.”

+

Obi-Wan fell to his knees and bit his lip to keep from crying out as he felt something rip from his mind.

Two standard months. He was only a padawan for two standard months before Master – before Master Jinn decided that Obi-Wan wasn’t worth the effort anymore, that Obi-Wan wasn’t good enough to be a Jedi Knight.

Instead, Master Jinn wanted Bruck. Obi-Wan wanted to curl up in his favorite tree in the Temple gardens and cry.

His vision went wobbly. He didn’t feel it when strong hands caught his head from hitting the floor.

+

Cin scooped up the fainted youngling in his arms and turned to glare at Qui-Gon Jinn, Moron Extraordinaire, as the large Jedi had the audacity to look surprised at young Kenobi.

The Battlemaster took a deep breath and let it out, releasing his rage into the Force and replaced the feeling with protectiveness. He wasn’t going to waste his breath chastising the Moran (the Jedi had forfeited the use of his given name in Cins mind and ~~possibly~~ would call the large Jedi that in place of his actual name to his face if he needed to) as it seemed neglected to look into the consequences of breaking a training bond to such a young student.

Cin quickly walked out of the training room and glanced at Mace. He wasn’t surprised at the absolute FURY on the Korun’s face.

He let the door shut and lock behind him as he made his way to the Medical Ward.

+

Master Che was almost horrified when checking over the unconscious youngling brought in.

Especially when she KNEW the little redhead had been in almost perfect health almost two and a half standard months ago.

Little Obi-Wan had lost weight, had dark circles under his eyes, and had small spots along his legs which looked as if he had been in one position for far too long.

There was also a new, quite fresh, significant scar where there had once been a training bond. The poor dear had to have been in a lot of pain from a sudden bond breaking.

She looked up at Master Cin Drallig, who then explained everything that he knew.

Master Che pinched her lips to stop from screaming. She nodded at the human man.

“I’ll prepare my report for the Council as soon as possible.”

+

“What do you mean I can’t have Bruck Chun as a padawan?”

“With how surprised you were at young Kenobi’s reaction when you severed the training bond so suddenly? And without at least talking to the Council about it first so we could attempt to bridge whatever problems were between the two of you? Why the HELL should we trust you with another youngling, Master Jinn?”

“Mace—”

“That’s MASTER WINDU, Master Jinn. This is an official Council meeting in which all of us are attempting to get to the bottom of why you behaved so rashly with young Obi-Wan Kenobi.”

“Master Yoda –”

“Has absolutely no sway about what happens further with the youngling anymore, Master Jinn.”

“Master Koon –”

“Not to mention Master Healer Che just sent us a health report of Kenobi. Master Jinn, how COULD you?”

“Master Ti –”

“NO! Master Jinn, it is the will of this Council that you are no longer fit to be allowed padawan learners anymore. As well as a mandatory stint with a mind healer.”

“But –”

“And don’t think that your grandmaster can pull his weight with us about this matter, Master Jinn. We’ve unfortunately let him interfere in your affairs for far too long, trusting he knew what was best as his grandpadawan. That stops today.”

+

It wasn’t supposed to be this way.

How was HE to know that Kenobi had a strong enough bond with himself to become ill at the bond severance.

All Qui-Gon had to do was play along with the therapists for a while.

Then he could get his padawan.

+

Cin felt relieved when the child stirred in the medical bed. There had been concern little Kenobi would be out for about a standard week and a half due to the trauma of the sudden bond breakage.

“Hello, youngling,” he said softly, as blue eyes opened to look up at Cin. He felt his heart clench as realization crept across the little face.

“Oh…Master Drallig, I’m sorry I –”

“You couldn’t help what happened, it wasn’t your fault,” Cin told the redhead, tucking the blanket a little more snugly around the boy.

“But it is! If I hadn’t been so weak in the Force and –”

“No, it was all Master...Jinn’s fault, not yours,” Cin barely caught himself from calling that Jedi his new name of Moran. The child would think that the new name was his fault too.

Cin sat down beside the bed and took one of the boy’s small hands into his own. “I know that Master Che will want you here for a while longer, young one, but I do have a question to ask of you.”

“Yes, Master Drallig?”

“Would you do me the honor of being my padawan student?”

The boy looked up at him in shock. “But why would you want me? No one else did! Master Yoda –”

Cin interrupted the boy with a shake of his head and fought the frown that wanted to appear on his face.

“Master Yoda rejected my petition to take you as a student before Master Jinn claimed you as a student, young Kenobi. If you wish, you can look at the Council Records, if you think I’m asking out of pity.”

The little boy bit his lip and looked to the side, deep in thought. He turned to Cin and nodded.

“Master Drallig, I would love to be your padawan.”

+

Cin Drallig smiled down at his padawan of five standard months. He was correct that Obi-Wan had instinctive lightsaber skills and took to Cin’s teaching as easily as breathing.

He had been quite pleased when the Council ignored Yoda’s protests that the Moron was the only Jedi to properly teach Obi-Wan and allowed Cin to form a training bond with the boy.

The Battlemaster wasn’t sure what the Moron had been talking about when he kept claiming the youngling was weak in the Force. Yes, he had some trouble with the Living Force, but that was natural for those whose talent ran in the Unifying Force – a talent which could be quite helpful during a fight for one’s life.

He encouraged the young boy to come to him when he had a vision or dream so they could both work out what the Force as trying to tell Obi-Wan. Which led to Obi-Wan’s more relaxed emotional state as he didn’t worry about being brushed off for his visions anymore.

Cin felt Obi-Wan stiffen at his side as another Jedi presence made itself known and scowled when he finally recognized it.

The Moron.

+

Qui-Gon strode up to Cin Drallilg and young Obi-Wan with confidence.

Yoda had managed to come into Qui-Gon’s mind healing appointments during the last five standard months and helped him see that he had been far too hasty with young Obi-Wan.

During those months of healing, he had strong Force visions of the small redhead growing up by Qui-Gon’s side and soaking up all of Qui-Gon’s teachings.

Yes, it was time to thank Cin for looking after young Obi-Wan and to reclaim his padawan.

+

Cin felt one of Obi-Wan’s hands clench into his tunic after the Moron thanked him for looking after Obi-Wan, but that it was time to return “his” padawan.

Oh. Hell. No.

This had Yoda’s meddling all over it since the Moron had been so willing to throw the brilliant young boy over for that brat Bruck Chun.

“Obi-Wan, go fetch one of the Masters and tell them there’s a dispute that needs to be settled.”

“Yes, Master.”

+

Mace Windu, Plo Koon, and Shaak Ti had not been amused to discover that Yoda somehow managed to change Qui-Gon’s mind about having young Kenobi as a padawan again.

They were even less amused when said boy came to them and told them of Qui-Gon’s demand.

The three Jedi looked at each other with exasperation before sending Obi-Wan off to his and his Master’s rooms to stay while they handled the latest mess caused by Yoda.

+

The Jedi Masters were surprised to find the two Jedi locked into an intense lightsaber duel, each throwing accusations at the other with each swing of their blades.

“You STOLE my padawan, Cin! Yoda gave him to me!”

“I did not such thing, you THREW AWAY a wonderful boy who I wanted in the first place, Moron!”

“Stop calling me that!”

“Truth hurts, doesn’t it?!”

Everyone was surprised when Qui-Gon suddenly Force-pulled Cin’s lightsaber out of his hand and smirked at the Battlemaster. “What now, Cin?! Do you concede the fight to me now that you can’t fight me?”

Cin rolled his eyes and suddenly had two shoto lightsabers in his hands. “You forget, Moron, that I’m the Battlemaster. I always have a few back-up weapons.”

Mace, Plo, and Shaak winced as Cin threw himself at the larger Jedi, and the two clashed blades again.

The outcome of this battle was not going to be pretty.

+

Qui-Gon showed up in front of the Council with bandages on the stumps where his forearms used to be as the Council decided his fate.


	5. Plo Koon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A slight change of pace for this chapter, no one was feeling chatty so *shrug*
> 
> Thanks to Discord for helping with the idea for this chapter.

The Sith grinned as he struck down the elder Jedi. It was a shame that the younger hadn’t recovered yet from being kicked away to see Maul’s triumph – the Zabrak sensed there was anger just below the surface of the redheaded Jedi and the fatal blow would prove the weakness of using just the Light Side of the Force to the younger human.

The Jedi Order had grown soft, so soft in their belief that the Sith had died out.

Maul snickered at the old fool dying before him, it had been so easy to track the Jedis’ movements due to the large human’s attachment to the Force-brilliant child slave. If only the Jedi was more coherent so Maul could gloat….ah, well.

The Sith wasn’t sure what he’d do with the brilliant Force presence he sensed that the Jedi had brought with them from Tatootine. He had discovered the slave boy shortly before the scruffy Jedi had and dismissed the possibility of taking him as his own apprentice. The Zabrak knew the Skywalker boy wouldn’t take to being trained well and would fight Maul all through the process. It simply wouldn’t be worth the headache, in Maul’s opinion.

But the padawan had such promise, yes – much of the Jedi student’s strength had been hidden, stifled under useless Jedi teachings.

The young man would make such a GLORIOUS Sith if Maul could just give him a little push in the right direction, together they could take down Lord Sidious and recreate the Sith Empire of Old. After today, there wouldn’t be any need to hide from the cursed Jedi anymore. Though if the rest of the Jedi were like this one, there shouldn’t be any problem at all.

However, the Jedi padawan was around Maul’s own age, a bit too old to change his alliance so easily perhaps if he was a – ah, that was it!

Maul smirked as he wove some Sith magic around the soon-to-be-dead Jedi.

The younger Jedi was certain to run towards his fallen Master as soon as he caught up to their location – Jedi were quite sentimental despite whatever they may say.

Soon, soon Maul would have a worthy apprentice of his own. He would teach the other to be loyal to the Zabrak, would go about it in a better way than his own Master had with himself….

It was the last thought the Sith had before a blue lightsaber sliced through his neck.

+

Obi-Wan knelt over Qui-Gon as the large man lay on the ground, the lightsaber wound in his chest visible from the slash in his tunics. There just had to be something he could do to save his Master, it wasn’t right the Jedi die so soon – not when they were just patching up their relationship.

The padawan placed his hand on the large man’s chest and started pushing healing energy into the unconscious Jedi.

Obi-Wan felt relieved as damaged tissues and organs started to mend, he should recover if the medics got there soon. At least, he hoped that someone had received his frantic comm and was able to come, anyway...he was SURE he felt the Force tell him battle ended in the Queen’s favor, but Obi-Wan wasn’t sure due to his concern for his Master.

Just as he was pulling his hand away from the quickly knitting flesh, the Force...felt off, like it was trying to warn him of something….but, Obi-Wan’s vision was starting to go black and his brain seemed to beat against his skull.

Maybe he had used too much energy to heal Qui-Gon? His legs gave out from under him and heard the rush of feet come toward them.

Then nothing.

+

Plo Koon hadn’t been sure what to expect when an urgent comm came from Naboo, telling the Jedi High Council they needed to come as soon as possible to the planet to look after Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan due to injuries separate from the battle.

Mace Windu had already been planning to travel to the troubled planet when it was discovered Qui-Gon took the extremely Force-sensitive child with him, despite the Council’s orders to place the child in the creche for the time being while they attempted to figure out what to do with him. It was just like the Maverick to attempt such tactics in order to get his way. Plo was the only other Council member available to come on such sort notice and they had taken the ship with the best hyperdrive to get there as quickly as possible.

It still took a standard week to get to Naboo and the two Jedi reviewed reports and security holovids sent by the Royal Palace in-between jumps to prepare themselves for what they may find.

Mace and Plo exchanged concerned looks. It seemed that the Siths’ demise had been greatly exaggerated and the Order would need to crack down on their security as well as training to prepare for the next encounter.

Plo frowned behind his mask as he saw Qui-Gon allow himself to be separated from his padawan and follow the tattooed Zabrak into an enclosed area. While the Kel Dor could understand wanting to keep up with such a foe, he could not condone the human rushing ahead and leaving behind his student open to a possible ambush attack by possible allies of the Sith warrior – something that had been a common tactic back in the Sith Wars.

Both men winced as they saw the red blade go through Qui-Gon’s chest but were slightly puzzled at the Zabrack’s actions around the fallen master –

OH...oh, dear…..

So that was what the Sith had in mind...

On the holovid screen, a small redheaded child was slumped on the ground and looked as if the clothes he was in would swallow him whole.

+

Little Obi-Wan Kenobi was very confused when he woke up in a hospital bed. Why wasn’t he in the creche? The last thing he remembered was Creche Master Jolene tucking them in for nap-time and promising blue milk with spiced honey cakes as a special snack later.

Oh...was...that a training bond he could feel? But why was it so muted? Did a Force bond form suddenly to a Master which caused him to be sick and landed him in the medical wing?

He rubbed the sleep grit from his eyes, then looked around the room in panic.

This was NOT the Jedi Temple’s Medical Ward. It was far too fancy.

Obi-Wan felt something gnaw inside his chest. Where was he? How did he get here?

He felt a strong calming wave roll over him as well as strong arms pull in into a close hug. This caused the child to snap back into the present and look up. Obi-Wan felt relieved as he saw the familiar goggles and mask of Master Plo.

Everything was going to be alright then, he just knew it.

+

Plo gently dragged his claws through the youngling’s hair as Obi-Wan drifted back off to sleep in his arms. The poor child had been relieved when Plo assured him that he wasn’t in any trouble for not being in the Temple and Plo promised little Obi-Wan he would explain later once the adult Jedi settled matters with the Naboo.

The Kel Dor caught the optic of the medical droid and asked to speak with the child’s primary healer. The droid confirmed and left to fulfill the Jedi’s request.

As soon as Plo got the confirmation from the healer about Obi-Wan’s health, then Plo would bring him to the rooms the Queen generously provided for the Jedi.

As soon as the healer arrived, however, Obi-Wan’s hand flew up to his head, and cried out in pain.

Plo’s eyes narrowed behind his goggles in fury.

Damn Qui-Gon Jinn!

+

Mace was thankful the Queen had arranged for the Skywalker child to spend time with handmaidens as he attempted to process Qui-Gon’s latest screw-up with poor Obi-Wan.

As soon as the Korun Jedi had entered the room, Qui-Gon had sat up in the hospital bed and recused Obi-Wan as his padawan. The Maverick Jedi stated that it was “the Will of the Force” that he survived in order to train the foundling as his padawan.

Mace was unimpressed with Qui-Gon, especially as the now fully healed Jedi acknowledged he remembered what had happened and grudgingly admitted that Obi-Wan might have played “a little part” in his survival.

He was more unimpressed when Qui-Gon didn’t seem to care that his padawan had been permanently de-aged to nine years old and that his sudden breaking of the bond could have seriously injured the boy.

The Head of the Jedi Order wasn’t sure his opinion of the Maverick Jedi could go any lower.

Then the Queen commed them to ask about the possibility of freeing Skywalker’s mother from slavery and bringing her to Naboo.

Mace barely resisted the urge to bury his face in his hands. Skywalker had been a slave?! And the other Jedi didn’t think to tell the Council?!

Kriff Qui-Gon Jinn.

+

Plo assured the healer that what Obi-Wan needed right now was to be with the Kel Dor Jedi in order for his Force presence to soothe and heal the mental scarring that occurred when the training bond was broken without warning. The healer, still very concerned but finally satisfied the young child would be alright, allowed Obi-Wan to leave.

The Kel Dor Jedi held the youngling tightly to his chest as he considered the options as he moved to what would be their room during their stay on Naboo. He had originally wanted to train Obi-Wan but had been thwarted by Yoda’s insistence that the Force stated that Qui-Gon was to be the youngling’s Master.

Well….perhaps the Sith Magic was a blessing in disguise then. When young Obi-Wan recovered, Plo would offer to be his Master. He hoped the youngling would agree.

Plo sent another soothing wave of the Force to Obi-Wan as the child sighed contentedly in his sleep and snuggled further into the adult’s chest. Satisfied the child was recovering, the Kel Dor entered their room and tucked Obi-Wan into bed with one of Plo’s extra robes to use as a security blanket while the Kel Dor took care of some unfinished business with a certain human Jedi.

+

Mace sighed, closing his datapad. He and the Queen had been going over a solid plan to free the foundling’s mother and allowed Skywalker to make his choice after Mace thoroughly explained to the Skywalker child what duties came with being a Jedi Knight and what was expected of them as well as why the Council was hesitant in training him. The child had been surprised, but after some thought, had agreed that the traditional Jedi training wouldn’t be beneficial to him.

The Korun promised Skywalker that there were other, lesser-known Force institutions and he would go over the most family-friendly options with him after his mother arrived on Naboo-- the child finally relaxed after he realized that he wouldn’t be sent back into slavery if he wasn’t taken to the temple.

With one headache taken care of, now Mace could concentrate on his other, bigger headache named Qui-Gon Jinn. He wasn’t quite sure what to do with the Maverick Jedi as he was sure Yoda would somehow stick his green nose into his grandpadawan’s affairs.

Ah well, he had time to think of something.

Mace stretched as he moved toward the training room that the Naboo had set aside for the Jedi to use so he could work off some of his frustration – ah...well, he probably should have expected this situation.

Qui-Gon Jinn and Plo Koon faced each other with their lightsabers lit-up in battle stances.

+

The Maverick Jedi felt sweat dripping down his face as the Kel Dor ruthlessly dueled with him. He understood the other wasn’t pleased with him, but why couldn’t he understand that the Force led him to Anakin? That Anakin was meant to be his padawan?

He supposed he could understand that, by a certain point of view, he had abandoned Kenobi...but damn it, Qui-Gon had been the boy’s Master for twelve long years and he simply wasn’t up to redoing the child’s apprenticeship again. If that damned Sith hadn’t interfered, Kenobi would have been Knighted via the right of conquest. Then no one would have batted an eye at Qui-Gon taking Anakin as his next and last padawan.

The large human felt a smug as he finally landed a lucky hit on the Kel Dor’s lightsaber hilt, which knocked it out of the other’s hand….then he remembered that the terms of the honor spar was not constrained to just lightsaber dueling – they had expanded it to include hand-to-hand combat as well as other Force abilities until one of the Jedi conceded to the other or was knocked out.

Qui-Gon paled as he realized emerald flecks of lighting started to form around Plo’s hands.

The last thing he remembered was being surrounded by green and sharp stings of pain.

+

Mace, after being told the terms of the honor fight when he arrived, wasn’t surprised Qui-Gon was on the floor, slightly convulsing with the remnants of Plo’s Electric Judgment.

The Korun would have to remember to thank the Kel Dor for dealing with the Maverick Jedi later.

+

Plo smiled under his mask as Mace witnessed him braiding a tiny padawan braid into red hair belonging to a smiling, excited child.

He knew the future was light and bright for little Obi-Wan from here on out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shimi was freed soon after and the Skywalkers choose a lesser-known Force organization which took in Force-sensitives and the families and Palpatine never got his icky hands on Anakin.


	6. Hondo Ohnaka

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is chapter is also part of my Enabling of Other Writers Punishment. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy it, Hondo kept making me rewrite this chapter.

Hondo allowed himself to put his head in his hands after he turned his comm off. It wasn’t that he didn’t like talking to Mama Ohnaka, not at all! Hondo adored his dear, sweet Mama! She was the entire reason that Hondo was the great pirate captain that he was, after all!

It was just that lately, Mama Ohnaka seemed to be missing the wonderful child that Hondo had been.

Which was understandable, he had been such an adorable child, if he could say so himself.

But now Mama was starting to ask Hondo when he was going to give her a little pirate-to-be to spoil.

Hondo supposed he could understand his Mama’s desire to have more little Ohnakas in the Galaxy – it would be a vast improvement with such wonderful beings running around! But how could he, the Great and Fabulous Pirate Captain Hondo Ohnaka, fathom raising a child when there was so much piracy that needed to be done?

+

Qui-Gon Jinn looked around the room at various beings chatting and drinking as he headed to the bar. It had been a long and difficult six standard months on a mercy mission on a little unnamed planet on the Outer Rim, especially with the small child that his grandmaster claimed the Force wanted him to train. He was eager to get back to the Temple, but the Jedi had heard through one of his contacts that Florrum was one of the best places to get information on just about anything in the entire Galaxy.

It was worth stopping by to see if there was any information about a certain Offworld Mining Corporation businessman. If not, well, at least he’d be able to get a drink or two before having to deal with ~~his~~ the padawan on the way back to the Temple.

The Maverick Jedi wasn’t quite sure what to do with the child. Kenobi simply wasn’t as Force-brilliant ~~as his previous padawan, Xanatos~~ as some other of the initiates at the Temple…..Qui-Gon was put out that Yoda kept refusing his request to train the white-haired child who bested Kenobi in the exhibition duel – Bruck Chun.

That child had shown cunning and brilliance….. Qui-Gon sighed as he ordered a large tankard of the local ale and leaned against the counter as he waited on his order. It simply seemed a waste to train Kenobi and give the redhead child false hope of becoming a Jedi Knight.

He’d have time on the journey back to think of a way to convince Yoda of the green being’s mistaken interpretation of the Will of the Force – the Jedi startled out of his thoughts when a hand clapped onto his back as his tankard of ale was placed in front of him.

“Hello, my friend!”

Qui-Gon turned his head to look at the shorter Weequay man who seemed to have appeared out of thin air and was standing by his side at the bar...well, more like leaning into Qui-Gon’s side in a facsimile of a side hug.

The Weequay, seeing that he now had the Jedi’s attention, skipped back a few paces and threw open in arms while performing a half-bow. “Welcome to my humble abode, new friend! I am the Wonderfully Kind and Benevolent Hondo Ohnaka!”

Qui-Gon took a long drink of his ale to hid his surprise. Well, it had been easier than he thought to find the man his contact had told him about. The Jedi Master wasn’t sure to be relieved or disappointed that it didn’t take any longer than it did.

“I am Qui-Gon Jinn. How fortunate that we’ve met, I’ve been told that you have a way of knowing certain information,” the Jedi said after he put down his tankard on the bar top.

Ohnaka grinned at Qui-Gon and whipped out a datapad as he moved toward the Jedi’s side at the bar. “Of course, of course! You have heard correctly! The Great Hondo Ohnaka knows a great many things about the Galaxy and is more than willing to share for the right price!”

The Maverick Jedi drained his ale as the Weequay leaned against the counter beside him. It would be worth it, he told himself, to put up with such a tiring being in order to find out if Xanatos was up to something.

The large man put a hand to his head as he placed the empty tankard down. He must have drunk too fast as his head was spinning. Qui-Gon never saw Ohnaka wave around the room and point to him as his head dropped onto the surface of the bar.

+

Hondo couldn’t believe his luck when the search of the rather large, scruffy man revealed a lightsaber. He had always wanted to capture and ransom a Jedi Knight!

True, it had been a bit easier than what he had previously thought, but Hondo wasn’t going to complain. It certainly wasn’t HIS fault the Jedi hadn’t been warned about the Weequay’s habit of greeting new friends.

Hondo couldn’t wait to tell Mama Ohnaka about his unexpected fortune later – she’d be so proud!

He had his crew set about placing the Jedi in a cell on one of his ships and place the newly-bought Force-resistant bonds on human. (Well, hopefully Force-resistant, Hondo would absolutely hate to have to call out the fellow who sold him a defective product, after all. Though he did have some new blasters that needed testing, and Mama always told Hondo that it was better to kill two birds with one blaster bolt) The pirate captain also sent his crew to secure and search the Jedi’s starship.

Hondo was a tad bit concerned when one of his crew commed him, babbling about how the pirate captain needed to come to the Jedi’s ship right now – what could be on a starship belonging to a Jedi to cause such concern? It wasn’t like Jedi were in the habit of carrying anything beyond standard supplies for travel –

Ah….

Words failed Hondo for once as he entered the Jedi ship and one of his crew pointed toward the corner of the ship’s cabin.

A little redheaded boy with torn robes and a visible bruise on his face with a short braid behind his ear pressed himself in the corner as he stared wide-eyed at the Weequay.

A padawan.

With how Jedi were rumored to be with their younglings….this might complicate the ransom plan.

+

Obi-Wan wasn’t sure what to think when the bond to Master went fuzzy then non-existent as he waited on the ship for the large Jedi’s return.

The child bit his lip as his stomach growled. He hoped that Master remembered to pick up more supplies before he returned as they had run out a couple of days before they had landed. His face hurt from being whipped into a wall from when they had to run from the angry locals that Master had been attempting to negotiate for supplies with at the previous outpost.

It wasn’t that Obi-Wan hadn’t tried to release his hunger and pain to the Force like Master said he should – he really did try! But...that wasn’t something that had been taught either the creche or the classes….and Master only glared at him and snapped that Obi-Wan wasn’t trying hard enough when he tried to explain as such to the adult Jedi.

Maybe Bruck and Master were right….maybe he wasn’t meant to be a Jedi Knight, no matter what the Grandmaster told him throughout the years. When they got back to the Temple, he would start looking into the Jedi Corps. Maybe he’d be better off in the Exploration Corps? As long as it wasn’t farming, plants and Obi-Wan did not mix all that well.

Obi-Wan had stood up when the ship’s hatch opened up and shrank back when the Weequay entered the ship.

What happened? Where was Master? Why couldn’t he feel Master anymore?

Oh no, that had to be the leader just coming on board…

+

Hondo collapsed in his chair hours later on the ship while in hyperspace. Convincing the small injured boy –Obi-Wan Kenobi – that they weren't going to hurt him and let them take him to their base to look after him took every bit of charm and skill that Mama Ohnaka had taught him over the years.

The pirate captain resisted the urge to scowl at the report that his medic gave him. He had to admit that he wasn’t very impressed – Mama Ohnaka would have thrown the Jedi Master out of an airlock. While his Mama, quite admittingly, had been a bit harsh on Hondo a few times while teaching him how the Galaxy worked, she made sure to balance such lessons with proper care, afterward.

Hondo had to admit that he was tempted to space the Jedi, but surely it was just a fluke that Jinn didn’t seem to know how to properly care for a child? Not everyone could be as great and talented at child-rearing like his Mama, after all – that others stumbled about while learning the ropes shouldn’t surprise him.

Perhaps it was something to ask about when the drugs in the Jedi’s system wore off – after getting taking a holovid of the Jedi for the ransom demand of course.

+

Obi-Wan couldn’t believe that the pirates were treating him as well as what they were. They hadn’t locked him up in a cell and weren’t threatening to sell him off into slavery like the stories around the creche had said.

Though the padawan had to admit that he didn’t think that the Ohnaka Gang, as he learned they were called, weren’t typical pirates.

They had patched up his wounds, let him change into his other clothes from his satchel that they had brought along with him and even let him have seconds of a hearty stew as well as a spiced honey cake afterward.

In fact, Captain Ohnaka (the small padawan tried but he simply couldn't remember the full title the excitable Weequay said before the “Captain” part) allowed Obi-Wan to stay in a room right next to the Captain’s!

The Captain, hand on Obi-Wan’s shoulder as the adult introduced him to members of the crew, said that his Master had some business with the pirates and would be staying in another part of the ship. That they hadn’t meant to scare the youngling, that they had simply boarded to secure the ship and hadn’t known there was a child on board.

That made sense to the padawan, Master tended to forget about him unless he was by the adult’s side.

He looked up at the Captain while the Weequay guided him through the ship – the Force wasn’t telling him the pirates meant him any harm and they WERE on the way back to the Temple.

Perhaps, for the first time since the Jedi pair had left the Temple all those months ago, things would turn out ok.

+

Hondo knew Mama Ohnaka would scold him for wanting to take a swing at a valuable hostage – but this Jedi would push even his sweet Mama’s temperament to the breaking point.

Jinn didn’t even ask about his child when Hondo came to visit after the Weequay learned the drugs had worn off (not to mention Hondo was quite pleased that the bonds were keeping the Jedi in check, he would have to send Cad Bane something very nice for such quality products) and shocked himself several times by attempting to use the Force, presumably to use one of those Jedi tricks to get Hondo to release the human.

The Jedi then, after the Great and Wonderful Hondo prompted him about the child, scoffed and told him to “do as he wished with the boy, it was of no consequence as the boy would surely fail at being a Jedi.”

Well then –

Hondo smiled to himself as he pressed the button on the remote he carried in his pocket, which caused the Jedi to convulse as more electricity flowed through the human.

Mama Ohnaka always said that fortune favored the Ohnaka family.

Little Kenobi was a sweet child, much like Hondo had been at that age, and clearly deserved a much better parent than Jinn or the other Jedi could provide.

Hondo knew that he would make a wonderful father to Kenobi, he just had to convince the child during the long journey towards the Inner Rim

+

Obi-Wan had to admit the really liked being around the pirates, especially Captain Ohnaka as he was the one that took over caring for him while Master was locked away with whatever business the pirates had for him.

The adult Weequay made sure Obi-Wan was fed (three times a day-cycle!), provided additional clothing after both sets of his Jedi robes had proven too thread-bare to stand up to the ship’s cleaning machines, and even brought Obi-Wan around the ship to teach him different things.

He was even learning about how to play Sabacc and “how to cheat like a proper pirate so you don’t get caught” because apparently everyone cheated at the card game and the best cheater won.

Obi-Wan wasn’t looking forward to leaving as the ship neared the Inner Rim.

He didn’t want to have to go back to being a disappointment of Master, didn’t want to go back to scoldings of not being “Jedi-like.”

He wanted to stay here, with Captain Ohnaka.

+

A little green troll and a Korun came into view as the holo-transmission booted up.

The Weequay put his best smile on and threw his arms out in greeting to the Jedi. “My friends! I seem to have located someone you’ve misplaced –”

“Master Qui-Gon Jinn, you have,” the troll stated, interrupting Hondo’s Grand and Most Wonderful Speech, how rude of the little Jedi! He must be the one to teach Jinn such awful manners.

The tall Jedi looked as if he had a headache, which Hondo wouldn’t blame the poor fellow, having to be around such a rude little being all the time!

“Is his padawan with him?”

Hondo widened his eyes and gasped at the question, straightening up and placing a hand to his chest.

“Padawan? You mean your people actually allowed this fellow to have a child? No, no dear Jedi! There was no Jedi youngling at this large fellow’s side when we met.”

The tall Jedi turned his head to scowl at the small, green Jedi for a moment before turning back to face Hondo, his face back into a neutral expression.

“What are the terms for Master Jinn’s return?”

+

The Weequay Pirate grinned as he used the teal-colored drug on Jinn (Hondo just HAD to convince the Duros bounty hunter to join his crew, such a useful fellow!) which would wipe his memory to just after the human left the Temple. Now the Jedi would have no clue where to look for little Obi-Wan and the pirates wouldn’t have to worry about being chased all over the Galaxy for a stolen Jedi youngling.

Everyone on ship cheered as the escape pod carrying Qui-Gon Jinn zoomed away.

+

Hondo grinned down at little Ben Ohnaka as he dialed his dear Mama’s comm code.

He was sure she’d be thrilled about her new title of Grandmama Ohnaka.


	7. The Oppress Brothers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this one got away from me. It would have been up sooner, but ....keyboard problems.

Savage and Feral Oppress remembered the day when the off worlder (he had looked so strange, they had thought, not having a tattooed face) came to get the eight-year-old twins and their baby brother, Maul, due to some deal Mother made with the man they were then told to address as Master.

Their time with Master made them absolutely miss their life from before, sure there weren’t any Nightsisters here, but the twins (and Maul, when he got old enough to understand the stories his older brothers told him of their homeworld) would have preferred to be back in the Nightbrother village, where they at least had a chance of getting proper healing and food and sleep.

With Master….well… Savage and Feral did what they could to protect their little brother as best they could but –

The truth was there simply wasn’t much they COULD do except try to prepare Maul to handle Master the ways that wouldn’t end up with the youngest with pain and hunger, not like the twins.

~~If only it worked. The twins felt like failures for not being able to to more.~~

+

When the twins were 18 and Maul just shy of turning 10, Master stormed into their cramped room and dragged Savage out without a glance at the other Zabraks.

Feral couldn’t do much except curl around Maul and whisper the same, soft assurances that Savage would return to them alive and they had to stay strong for their missing brother’s peace of mind when he returned.

Savage didn’t return that night cycle. Each day that passed Feral worried that Master’s temper finally snapped and killed Savage. Maul grew quieter and more clingy to Feral – as well as more angry at Master for taking away their brother.

The only mercy was that Master left them alone all for that time and remaining brothers got regular food and sleep.

~~They’d trade it back happily if that meant Savage would return to them.~~

After 15 days passed, the door to their room opened and a large figure with large horns was pushed into the room and the door slammed shut after them. It took the brothers to realize that it was Savage.

They weren’t sure what happened to him ….to make their brother this huge, hulking being when before he and Feral had almost been the same size. But with the fresh whip marks and bruising which could only bee seen on the un-tattooed parts of skin, whatever Master had done to Savage hadn’t been a complete success.

Savage was unconscious for a few days afterward and the brothers tended to him in shifts while Master brought his attention back to the other two Zabraks with a renewed sense of vigor. Neither brother could remember the last time Master had pushed their training to almost their breaking point before.

~~They would never admit to how relieved they were when Savage finally woke up, that they were worried that Savage...~~

When Savage woke up, he told them of the ritual that Master had put him through, something which was supposed to give Palpatine complete control over him as well as give the Zabrak the strength to be able to go up against the Sith’s greatest enemy, the Jedi.

Feral and Maul looked at each other while gently leaning against their now larger brother. It seemed that the now knew why Master was so angry.

The three siblings swore once again they would find a way to break free of Master and return to Dathomir to get answers they were entitled to.

+

It was a few standard months after Maul turned 18 when the three brothers fell to their knees when they felt the ~~slave~~ forced training bond with Master suddenly break. They looked at each other in amazement as the dark presence that had constantly in their minds for 17 years melted away as if it had never been there. ~~The Zabraks would almost swear they felt lighter as well.~~

They knew something had to have gone wrong with Master’s plan to kill his Master ( ~~their grandmaster, not that they ever met him and were thankful they never did~~ ) so that Master could become the Sith Lord of their lineage.

Savage pushed his brothers behind him as they followed the wisps of dark magic to the elder Siths’ location. He couldn’t stop the gasp that escaped his mouth as his yellow eyes took in the sight before him in the large ~~torture~~ ritual chamber, a sound which made his smaller brothers poke their heads from around him to also look into the room.

Master and another figure were collapsed onto the floor, unmoving. Savage reached out with the Force – yes….they were both dead.

The brothers were finally free.

+

The three siblings decide to leave out evidence of their Master – Palpatine’s , they could use that kriffer’s name now they were no longer bonded to the human, – wrongful deeds as to prove to the Galaxy that the Sith hadn’t been as gone as they had believed all this time.

Feral sliced into the hidden Sith bank accounts and transferred every last credit that he could find into another, freshly made account under the Oppress (it felt so GOOD to be able to reclaim their clan name) brothers' name. He also sliced into Palpatine’s and his Master’s (Hego Damask, a Munn, which surprised him that a Munn would be so sloppy with security, but Feral assumed that being a Sith made the Demask arrogant and lax) hidden personal accounts and transferred the credits as well.

Savage and Maul, while their brother was at the computer terminal, went around the hidden Sith stronghold and destroyed any evidence of the Zabraks’ existence within the walls as well as packing away anything that they thought would be useful in their new lives.

They felt fortunate that over the years the Sith of Bane’s line had the sense to have a variety of ships to choose from and picked a (most likely custom-made) ship big enough for at least five grown Wookies to move around without discomfort. Some poking around proved that it had a couple of freshers, five decently sized quarters, a galley, and two storage spaces, one of which they would turn into a training space.

Sending a quick comm text to Feral about the ship and to slice the records into their name, Savage started prepping the ship for take off while Maul about putting everything they had previously packed onto the ship.

Once Feral joined them, they would be setting a course to Dathomir.

+

All they found left of the Nightsisters and Nightbrothers were collapsed villages and bleached bones.

+

It was on Takodana, resupplying the ship and trying to figure out what to do next when they met Hurron Kul’va, an Idonian Zabrak who was wearing beskar’gam. The other Zabrak had wandered over to where the brothers’ table was at in the corner of the room, with his buy’ce under his arm, and politely asked if he may talk with the brothers.

+

Ah, no wonder Kul’va had approached them, he was worried about his fellow Zabraks (never mind that they were of a different subspecies) due to Dathomirian Zabraks being considered….exotic now, due to their people being nearly wiped out years before. After hearing the siblings’ history, he had extended an offer to bring them into his family, which they politely declined. They were more interested in trying to figure themselves out before even considering joining another culture.

Fortunately, Kul’va understood and wasn’t offended at the declined offer. Leaning his head on his arm, he asked what the Oppress brothers had in mind for the future. He didn’t seem surprised that they hadn’t figured that out yet.

“With your skills,” he said, taking a swig of strong ale. “You could become bounty hunters.”

+

The Oppress brothers were glad for the custom armor to hide their species, even though Savage grumbled about filing down his horns to better wear the helmet. They would need to remember to send Kul’va their thanks for sending them to the custom shop.

+

Their reputations as bounty hunters took off after they successfully brought in high ranking members of the Black Sun and Bora Gora. No one needed to know that this was a good chance at revenge as Palpatine used said organizations to further his plans. ~~Though the twins tried not to roll their eyes as Maul bombed their bases, cackling as the fires danced through the ruble.~~

+

Qui-Gon Jinn struggled to keep his face neutral when he saw that Prime Minister Nagne of Nowa hired bounty hunters. He didn’t understand why the man bothered to call the Jedi in for negotiations with the rebelling faction if the politician had no problems hiring such...uncivilized beings.

No, he told himself, it didn’t matter. It was the Will of the Force that the Jedi were called to help the war-torn planet. His personal feelings would have to be put aside for his duty.

Something that ~~his~~ the young padawan at his side had yet to learn.

+

Obi-Wan was nervous as he stood by Master’s and saw the red and black armored beings. Master had told him, in between lectures about how a good Jedi should act, that Fallen Jedi were hunted down by bounty hunters.

That Obi-Wan would Fall if he didn’t do as Master instructed on how to be a Jedi.

The young padawan gulped as he tried not to fidget and was determined more than ever to be a Good Jedi.

+

Maul frowned at the older Jedi as the human looked offended when the Prime Minister stated that he hired him and his brothers to protect the Jedi pair while traveling through Nowa. The Zabrak could understand if it had just been the adult by himself, but why wasn’t the man worried about the child by his side?

The padawan barely reached the adult’s waist, he’d be so very easy to lose in the middle of battle, so easy for one of the soldiers to take and use as a shield or to use as a bargaining token against the Jedi –why was he arguing so hard against help? Surely Jinn cared what happened to the boy?

From what the siblings had witnessed over the past five years since their freedom, Jedi were very protective of their young …. and why was that youngling flinching when the older one turned to look at him, a barley concealed frown on the human’s bearded face.

Maul had to stop himself from looking over at his brothers or opening their internal helmet comms as Jinn seemed to have reached an acceptable compromise with the Prime Minis – ah, so that’s how it was going to be then.

It seemed that the Oppress brothers would be playing nursemaids to one Obi-Wan Kenobi at the Prime Minister’s residence while Jinn traveled around the war-torn planet.

+

Qui-Gon set out the next day with his comm and provisions early in the day after setting various tasks for Padawan Kenobi to complete over the next standard month while the Maverick Jedi traveled around the warring planet to attempt negotiations with the opposing factions.

He admitted to himself that it was perhaps a bit cruel to leave the padawan behind to be watched over by the bounty hunters – especially after all the stories the Jedi told Kenobi in an attempt to get him to behave – but Qui-Gon did hope that it would inspire the youngling to do better in his studies.

Not to mention he was looking forward to the slight break from caring for the boy for the next few weeks. He was certain things would be quite different by the time the Jedi pair left Nowa.

He could feel the promise of change in the Force.

+

Obi-Wan blinked back the tears in his eyes as he followed one of the Minster’s aides through the twisting hallways and kept telling himself that Jedi Knights did not get scared, that Master would be disappointed in him if he let his fear of the bounty hunters overtake him. Especially as he would be sharing rooms with them for the time that Master was away, trying to bring peace back to the people.

He took a deep breath and stepped into the room and absolutely did not jump when the door shut behind him and the armored beings were in front of him.

The boy was surprised when all three dropped into a crouch to be more at his height and took off their helmets.

They were Zabraks! But they were different from Masters Eeth Koth and Agen Kolar, though. The Jedi Zabraks didn’t have such bold tattoos, for one, and these Zabraks had different types of horns as well as not having any hair. And….was that the Force he could feel around them? He didn’t know that bounty hunters could be Force-sensitive!

By their amused looks, Obi-Wan realized he was staring.

Oops.

Gathering his raising courage, he stood up gave the three a deep bow. “Hello, I’m Padawan Obi-Wan Kenobi.”

“We are Savage, Feral and Maul Oppress, young one.”

+

The brothers had been furious when little Kenobi admitted a few days later, when he was far less scared of them, about what the supposed adult Jedi had told him about bounty hunters. Maul, to the twins' surprise, was the one to sit down with the child and explain to him exactly how they worked and that they certainly wouldn’t go after a youngling unless they thought the being in question was in some sort of danger and needed help.

None of them were impressed with the ….. well, they supposed the politest term they could call it was “busy work.”

Meditating for eight hours a day? Reading the Jedi Code at least 3 times a day? Reading up on Living Force Theory for at least two hours a day?

The brothers looked at each other and scoffed. This wasn’t going to teach the child anything about the Galaxy nor how to defend himself against others who wanted to harm him.

Savage and Maul agreed to go through mediation and katas with Obi-Wan for a few hours a day. When Obi-Wan tried to protest that he needed to follow Jinn’s list, Maul simply rolled his eyes and pointed out that Jedi was being too unreasonable but –at the child’s distressed face – amended that they could tutor him in the Living Force but it would be for reasonable hours with breaks.

Feral said that he would cover other subjects, such as negotiation tactics, picking a lock, and slicing (it’s useful, he told the boy, who looked ready to object).

Obi-Wan had to admit, if only to himself after a ten-day, that he had learned more from the Zabracks than the last six standard months with Master – Knight Jinn. (He wasn’t going to call him just Master anymore, he couldn’t after the brothers had to gently explain why they flinched the first time he said it.)

They were different, sure, but a nice kind of different. They didn’t feel as Light as others at the Temple, but they certainly didn’t feel scary like the padawan thought a Darksider would feel like.

The brothers didn’t scold him when he couldn’t do something on the first try, they just went over what went wrong and had him try again.

It was kind of funny when Maul had panicked at Obi-Wan’s panic about failing something though. The youngest Zabrak had grabbed a blanket, wrapped the child in it, and stuffed a cookie from a nearby plate into his mouth.

“What,” Maul said, holding the swaddled boy who attempted to chew on the slightly too-large-for-his-mouth treat. “Isn’t this how you're supposed to comfort a distressed youngling?”

+

“We’re keeping Obi as our little brother.”

“Maul, no.”

“Maul, yes.”

“I agree with Maul in this.”

“Savage, no!”

Maul threw his arms up and growled at Feral’s stubbornness. “We can’t just leave the boy with that thing! He’s giving our future little brother anxiety!”

Feral rubbed his hands on his face and sighed. “You realize if, and I’m not agreeing to anything don’t give me that look, if we do succeed in stealing little Obi away, how long will it be before we’re having to dodge a very angry Jedi Order?”

Maul smirked at his reluctant older brother and opened his mouth –

“WITHOUT KILLING HIM MAUL!”

Maul huffed and plopped down, crossing his arms.

Feral glared at Savage, whose mirth was given away by the shaking of his shoulders, then looked back at his sulking little brother. “Maul, it isn’t that I don’t want him to stay with us, I really do. But even IF we got away with taking Obi and killing Jinn and getting off the planet, the Jedi Order would contact Nowa when they don’t show up for a time and –”

“They’d probably figure out really quick we would have something to do with it,” Savage interrupted, his mood souring. “None of the Nowa would dare touch the one who brought peace back to their people.”

Maul grumbled and hunched down further in the chair, glaring at the wall. He understood what his siblings were saying, he did! But …. he liked having someone around that looked up to him, that he could teach things to and – no, Maul decided, sitting up, a grin spreading over his face.

Feral and Savage implied they couldn’t do anything while on the planet. They didn’t say anything about AFTER they left the planet. He started to cackle to himself as he started to consider plans.

The smaller twin looked between his baby brother and larger brother, who simply smirked back at him, and sighed.

Feral hoped that he wouldn’t regret the results of whatever Maul was planning.

+

Obi-Wan tried not to sulk when a standard month and a half later Qui-Gon came back to the Prime Minister’s residence, a bit more worn for the wear, but a satisfied smug smile on his face as he had brought the rebel leaders back for the final peace negotiations. Sulking was not the Jedi way, he told himself. It wasn’t like he could stay with the Oppress siblings, he knew that they were busy with their work.

It’s just… he’d miss them. Obi-Wan wished, if just for a few minutes while he gathered his things from their rooms, that the Zabraks were Jedi and could take over his training. It was a shame that the Prime Minster had to pull them away earlier to guard the peace talks that were occurring. And Mas – Knight Jinn insisted they leave as soon as possible so they could give the Temple the report on Nowa.

Obi-Wan wouldn’t get to say goodbye. He made sure Knight Jinn was still in the fresher before grabbing a piece of flimisi and stylus, scribbling his thanks to the brothers and that he hoped they could meet again someday. The small redheaded child then shoved the flimisi under the door to their sleeping quarters.

He sat on the nearby couch and commed the hanger to start preparing their ship for take-off. The less time Obi-Wan had to be on Nowa without the brothers being nearby, the better.

+

Qui-Gon congratulated himself, as they just left hyperspace and waiting for another jump, for following the Will of the Force and leaving Padawan Kenobi with those….bounty hunters for all that time he had been away. He could tell the youngling was far more centered and advanced than when Maverick Jedi had left. Perhaps there was hope for the redheaded child, after all.

He was less sure about the youngling’s slightly cool behavior toward him but figured that the child would get over whatever was bothering him.

Qui-Gon frowned at the ship’s engine and hyperdrive controls. What in the Force –

The ship jolted to a sudden stop and then started slowly drifting.

Well, kriff.

+

Savage and Feral stared at their little brother as he started cackling at the beacon that showed up on their navigation screen as they left the planet. The twins should have known Maul had done something when he didn’t sulk at not being able to see the little Jedi before he had to leave with …. that man.

Feral managed not to roll his eyes as he set course to where the sabotaged Jedi ship was.

+

Qui-Gon closed his eyes and tried to (unsuccessfully) release his aggravation into the Force it turned out the ship that offered to tow them to the nearest repair station belonged to those damned bounty hunters. No, he told himself, he DID owe them a debt for making Padawan Kenobi more bearable to be around. And they weren’t asking for anything in exchange.

…. but he couldn’t deny that all he wanted was to go back to the Temple and relax after such a trying mission as well as prove to the other Masters that Padawan Kenobi could indeed be taught after all.

+

Unfortunately, the closest repair yard was 15 days away from their position, the time would have been cut in half if they had been able to use their hyperdrive, but didn’t want to risk further damage to the Jedi ship.

The first couple of days went by fine, if not irritating as the brothers saw Jinn had gone back to putting the small padawan through those useless tasks again. As the days went on, however, the adult Jedi’s mood got worse and worse at, in his view, the lack of further progress in the child’s abilities.

What did he expect, Feral grumped to himself, the useless Jedi wasn’t actually TEACHING Obi-Wan anything! The Zabrak wondered what Maul had in mind when he sabotaged the Jedi’s vehicle and when he was going to do – Feral dropped the datapad in his hand at the sound of Savage’s infuriated roar.

What the kriff?!

Feral almost collided into Maul when he ran to the location where their large brother’s bellow had come from and stiffened at the sight that angered Savage.

Little Obi-Wan had a hand-print on his face.

OH HELL NO

+

Qui-Gon jerked his head up at the angered exclamation of the largest bounty hunter and was about to tell the being to mind their own business when suddenly he was Force-pushed across the room and into the wall. He happened to see one of the other beings whisk Padawan Kenobi away while the other two stayed behind, blocking the pathway.

He gritted his teeth, how dare Padawan Kenobi use the Force against him! A harsh laugh from the smaller remaining bounty hunter caused Qui-Gon to glare at him.

“It wasn’t little Obi who did that to you, it was me, Jedi,” the being growled at him as the bounty hunters ripped off their helmets.

What the….. “Darksiders,” Qui-Gon accused. No wonder Padawan Kenobi wasn’t making any progress with such foul things about. He wasn’t losing another student to the Dark.

He lit up his green lightsaber and prepared to attack.

+

The Zabraks rolled their eyes at Jinn’s statement and flicked on their own weapons. Savage’s orange blade crossed with the Jedi’s green while Maul swiped at the human’s side with his own purple blade. Qui-Gon managed to dodge the blow and the brothers managed to drive the Jedi down into the back area of the ship.

“Monsters,” the Jedi huffed at them, narrowly missing being beheaded by the purple lightsaber.

“If you think we’re monsters,” Savage said, smirking as he managed to slice through the Jedi’s ‘saber arm at the shoulder. “You should have met the ones who we were forced to grow up under."

Maul growled as Jinn cradled his injury while attempting to stand, with a stubborn look on his face. “The only monster here, Jedi, is you. You terrify and hurt a child under your care under the guise of teaching him.” The smaller Zabrak’s purple blade sliced through Jinn’s mid-section as the man attempted to summon his light-saber to continue the fight.

The fallen Jedi gasped for air as he attempted to heal himself through the Force.

Maul huffed and looked at his brother. “Enough of this. Let us get rid of this filth.”

With that. Maul touched a panel that opened a nearby door. Savage used the Force to pick up Jinn and his cut-of body parts to throw past the door. Both Zabraks smirked as they heard him land with a thump. They could barely hear the muffled scream as the outer door of the chamber opened to release the pathetic Jedi into space.

+

The Jedi discovered pieces of the missing Jedi ship and sadly marked down that a Master-Padawan pair had been killed on their way back to the Temple.

+

A few standard months later, Ben Oppress was getting fitted for his first set of armor that matched his brothers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What was Maul's original plan? Who knows, he didn't tell me.


	8. Commander Fox

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one wanted to go out of control and not end. 
> 
> I had to break out the firehose to get it under control.

CC-1010 closed his eyes for the last time as the invisible pressure on his neck increased from Lord Vader.

Everything went black.

+

Fox opened his eyes, staring up at a metal ceiling, and heard the unmistakable rumble of a space engine. What the kriff?! How...where…

He sat up suddenly, eyes darting around as his mind tried to make sense of everything.

Sheev Palpatine, the Chancellor – the man Fox had so willing and proudly served –was a Sith who had betrayed the Republic to build a kriffing Empire. Betrayed Fox and the vod'e by taking away their free will with just a few little words to slaughter the Jettise.

Fox never held the Jettise in as high esteem as the rest of the GAR did, but Manda….they didn’t what had happened – to be blamed for the war and wiped out while at least half of the Galaxy cheered for their destruction. Then Palpatine, after proclaiming himself Emperor, decided to start “retiring” the clones as the rapid aging got to them….but Palpatine, claiming that he didn’t want to waste the time in training other to take Fox’s place, actually had the long necks stop and somewhat reverse the aging on him.

He rubbed his face – wait…where was his bucket? Taking a moment to look at himself, Fox realized that all of his armor was gone and was replaced with a tunic which barely covered his built physic, leggings which had seen better days and no shoes.

Fox...was confused. Was he in the afterlife and being punished?

His head jerked toward the door as it opened and a figure in the doorway pulled a blaster on him.

Fox felt his heart skip a beat.

It was Jango Fett.

+

Fox was surprised that Fett hadn’t commented on their similar looks and thought the clone was a fellow slave who managed to sneak onboard before passing out. He wasn’t sure that his template would accept the truth, so it was for the best.

+

Kriff...Fox rubbed his face as the smaller man slammed down a beer which the men found in a hidden cabinet in the galley. Fett had just freed himself after being a slave for years and had stolen the shuttle from the (now very dead) slavers and hadn’t been expecting anyone else on board until he had stumbled upon Fox while doing a sweep of the craft, he told Fox, ending a long tirade of his life’s story.

So, the former Commander thought, he wasn’t dead, he had been thrown back into the past for some reason. ~~He wasn’t sure that he deserved this, he had done so much wrong even Kote would be a better choice than him not to kriff up whatever reason the Manda brought him here.~~

The larger man eyed Fett as the smaller man got up and staggered to grab another drink. The Commander in him wanted to stop Fett’s self-destructive behavior but decided that it wasn’t his place. Besides, the other man might slip out more useful information while his tongue was loosened with drink.

+

Fox did his best to wrestle down the tight, hot rage that attempted to reach out of his chest as the other man raged more and more about getting revenge on the Jettise for ruining his life, for slaughtering his people.

The clone understood Fett’s rage at the loss – though the vod’e thought that Fox was a cold bastard who only cared about his duty to the Republic, he simply held back his pain and anger when he was forced to send vod’e for decommissioning or when more vod’e died than necessary due to the demands of the Senate and the inexperience of most of the Jedi Generals.

Fox used his rage to further push his men to be the best they could, to train the men so they would be able to survive longer. He used it to push himself to do more in a ~~useless~~ attempt to lessen the burden from his brothers’ shoulders.

The larger man’s ire grew Fett’s tirade continued about his desire for payback for the wrong done to him and ~~their~~ his people yet said nothing about even the start of a plan to search for any remaining Haat’ Mando’ade. Why wasn’t Fett even going to try, as was his duty as Mand’alor? To gather his people and then decide how to move forward to rebuild first? ~~He was abandoning them just as he abandoned the clones.~~

The clone’s grip on his drink tightened the more Fett ranted. When Fox finally interrupted to ask about conducting a search for any survivors, the smaller man scoffed at him. He didn’t see the point, he said while slamming down the half-empty drink, there would only be a few left and what good would that do against the Jettise?

Fox stood up and slammed his fist in the other’s nose. Fett was no Mand’alor, his mind screamed. Fett didn’t care—he was putting his personal desires over what was best for his people. Fett’s selfishness is what led to the creation and suffering of the vod’e, lead to the genocide of another people and allowed a kriffing Sith to create an Empire with hardly any protest in the Senate.

The clone wasn’t going to let Fett’s actions ruin the Galaxy again – a plan formed in Fox’s mind as the other growled in pain at his broken nose and prepared to rush at him.

+

Fox watched as the body was reduced to ashes on the uninhabited planet.

+

“Jango” had been recognized almost immediately by a Haat’ Mando’ade clan elder passing by Fox a few days later on a little Mid Rim planet the clone stopped at in order to get another set of clothes and supplies for the shuttle. The Twi’lek woman fussed over him when he explained away her confusion at the change of “Jango’s” size that that his slavers had used experimental drugs on him to make him stronger and bigger so he could work more efficiently.

The green woman’s lekku twitched in glee as she pulled out her comm and grinned at him.

“It’s time to let the other clans know that our Mand’alor has returned.”

+

Fox wasn’t surprised that there were FAR more Haat’ Mando’ade left than Jango had claimed. Some fled into hiding, while others spread stubbornly stayed on Mandalore determined to rebuild while they waited for their Mand’alor to return to them and a few had joined either Death Watch or the New Mandalorians in desperation (he would have to keep a close eye on those in case they were spies or sleeper agents).

+

“Jango” looked down the crumpled, bloodied, body parts that had once been Tor and Pre Vizsla. He held the Darksaber in one hand as his people chased after fleeing Kyr’tsad warriors.

+

“But Buir!”

“Sat’ika. I won’t change my mind. Jango Fett just ended the biggest threat to our peoples and agreed to negotiations with us.”

“But it didn’t have to end in such, such BARBARIC slaughter! We could have tried –”

“Mand’alor Fett discovered the plan to end my life by a Kyr’tsad sleeper agent among our people and warned us what to watch out for. I find it quite interesting that the same sleeper agent was the one feeding you such things about how pacifism works.”

“But – ”

A heavy sigh. “I thought I taught you to actually think about what others tell you, Sat’ika. This just proves to me that you’re far too easily influenced by others. You can forget about going to school on Coruscant. Who knows what sort of things you’ll get into your head.”

+

“Jango” smirked to himself as he read reports on updates about how stabilized the Mandalorian sector had become since quelling the fighting between clans and putting strict regulations on outsider influence on their politics.

Even the Jettise had reached out to the Mand’alor to offer the use of their Agriculture Corps in reparation for the damages they had caused to Mandalore. Fox stifled a snort as he noticed as Republic remained quiet on the matter.

+

Fox raised an eyebrow as he read a request from a Jetti to see some relics from Mand’alor Tarre Vizsla’s reign. He was more surprised to see the Jetti in question was one Qui-Gon Jinn.

He sat back in his desk chair, hands steepled as he considered the matter.

The clone remembered the name from the rare times that he managed to go to 79’s when Kote and Rex were there. Rex often complained that Skywalker would sulk about how Kenobi was holding him back and that he would have been granted Master status by now if Qui-Gon Jinn, who had been Kenobi’s Master, had lived through the Battle of Naboo and taken Skywalker on as a Jedi student. Kote would roll his eyes and say that it was probably a good thing, and had proceeded to rant about things his General had let slip about his own apprenticeship under the man.

Doing a bit of mental math, he determined that the General would still be in his apprenticeship with the questionable Jedi. Fox admitted to himself that he was quite curious about the pair and if either held up the gossip he heard from his brothers.

It couldn’t hurt, he decided. No Jetti would dare anger the Jetti’alor after an accord had been reached.

+

Qui-Gon smirked at his datapad as his request had been approved from Fett. He knew the Council wouldn’t be happy when they learned of his little side-trip instead of returning to Coruscant after a six-month standard diplomatic mission along the Outer Rim. But this was such a rare opportunity for the Maverick Jedi to learn about one of the few Mandalorian Jedi and who was he to not take advantage when he discovered a flight path that happened to pass-by Mandalore?

Perhaps he could also get permission to search for the rumored Temple that the ancient Mandalorian Jedi had supposedly built…Qui-Gon would meditate on the matter later.

For now, the large man needed to go tell his young apprentice, Obi-Wan Kenobi, of the change of plans.

+

Obi-Wan wanted to groan when his Master told him they’d be stopping on Mandalore for at least a ten-day – he didn’t know who Master Jinn was fooling, the adult Jedi would find ways to extend their stay by at least two standard months – before going back to the Temple.

The seventeen-year-old padawan was FAR behind on his classes thanks to the mission that lasted longer than it should have (no thanks to the locals catching on to Master Jinn’s use of Force trickery during what was supposed to have been a friendly Sabbac game) and Obi-Wan also wanted to see if he could sign-up for Master Drallig’s Jar’Kai workshop. Hopefully, they would stay in Temple long enough for him to actually be able to ATTEND it this time. ~~I~~ ~~f the padawan didn’t know better, he’d say that Master Jinn was trying to sabotage – no, best not complete that thought.~~

He sighed as he looked at the rapidly approaching planet.

Perhaps Obi-Wan would be able to take some time for himself while Master Jinn was busy with his studies into the ancient Mand’alor Jedi.

+

Fox sighed as yet ANOTHER one of his people came to him, looking for permission to adopt Kenobi away from that di’kut Jetti.

The Mand’alor understood the desire to bring the padawan into their culture. The young man took to learning Mando’a and Mandalorian hand-to-hand battle techniques as naturally as breathing. It was so easy to envision him swearing the Resol’nare and wearing beskar’gam.

Kenobi also had a good head for politics, despite what he would claim, and had given the Mandalorian leader a few ideas on how to better ensure ~~Palpatine~~ the Republic would have an even harder time to try to meddle with Mandalore’s affairs.

Fox, as well as most of the Haat’ Mando’ade, was furious with the Jetti buir’s thoughtlessness of the padawan. Jinn seemed more interested in … almost anything else than making sure the teenager’s needs were being met and ensuring that the ~~boy~~ young man was safe. Yes, there was an understanding between their people, but there were still a few disgruntled Kyr’tsad supporters that lingered who wouldn’t hesitate in taking advantage of an unattended padawan to restart the ancient feud between the Haat’ Mando’ade and the Jettise.

The only reason Fox withheld permission from his people – didn’t adopt the young man himself despite his growing desire to see him grow into a great Mandalorian warrior and leader – was Kenobi himself.

The padawan was quite serious about not abandoning his oaths ( ~~almost to the point of desperation, the Mand’alor wondered if Kote knew the story behind that~~ ) and felt that it was his duty to become a Jetti to serve the people.

Fox could understand following through with duty despite any hardships that one faced. It was something to admire and had the clone respecting the young man for his convictions.

A loud crash from the artifact room startled the clone from his thoughts and ran toward the room when he heard the di’kut Jetti’s exclamation of “Well THAT’s unexpected.”

+

Fox barely resisted rubbing his eyes to make sure he wasn’t dreaming what he saw in front of him.

A little redheaded boy looked back and forth between Jinn and Fox, while he sat on the floor with fabric puddling around him.

Manda, how did –

The Mand’alor then spotted a certain orb in Jinn’s hand. An orb which had been behind a thick transparasteel case with a very clear warning that it was not to be touched as the description of what it was supposed to do by the ancient Mandalorian Jetti was … vague. Something about granting a second chance to those deemed worthy.

Most Mandalorian researchers thought that it had been used to grant Cin Vhetin in the past. It seemed that they were correct, in a sense.

Ignoring the other adult, Fox crouched down to the child and gently asked if he was alright. Obi-Wan peeked up at him from under his eyelashes and nodded, staring wide-eyed at Fox then raised his arms toward him.

Unable to resist the boy’s unasked desire, Fox scooped the child up in one arm and tucked the boy close to his chest. He glared at Jinn and told the di’kut, as he passed him while leaving the room, in a low voice that Fox would comm him later about this situation after he had the small child settled.

+

Obi-Wan snuggled into the (surprisingly) comfortable and warm chest as he was carried away from Master Jinn in the somehow familiar man’s arm. He wasn’t too sure what was going on, as he could only remember shouting and a burst of light before Master Jinn’s frowning face came into view. The small child only knew he didn’t want to be around the Jedi …. the rumors of what happened to his last student circled around the creche and it was agreed that it was good to avoid that particular Master if possible.

The boy moved his head slightly to peer at the adult in thought. The Force was whispering good things about him, despite the fact the man was Mandalorian, and held the promise of a different future away from the Jedi. Obi-Wan wondered if it had been the Force to bring him here, to be with this oddly familiar Mandalorian…..he didn’t think it would be a bad thing, to stay here.

He knew some of his age-mates and teachers didn’t think he had the right temperament to be a Jedi and constantly pointed out his failures and scolded him all the time for not being “Jedi enough.”

Obi-Wan tried and tried and tried, yet still, he wasn’t considered good enough.

Maybe, just maybe he could be a good Mandalorian instead.

Now he just had to convince the man that it was a good idea.

+

Fox commed one of his assistants for child-size clothing as he entered his private chambers. He sighed and told the confused being he’d be releasing a public announcement about it later. He also told the being to prepare one of the larger training rooms as he and Jinn had some … differences to work out.

The corner of his mouth twitched upward as the youngling attempted to burrow further into his chest and made a sleepy noise. He hated to disturb the child but Fox did need to talk to him before he contacted Jinn to see if he remembered anything from when he was older.

He did not expect after he put Obi-Wan down on the couch and knelt in front of him for the child to throw his arms around his neck.

“I wanna stay with you, please don’t send me away with Master Jinn to the Temple.”

Fox’s resolve finally broke at the pleading in the boy’s voice.

“I know your name as my child, Obi-Wan.”

+

“Mand’alor Fett, with all due respect, Obi-Wan Kenobi is under my care.”

“’Lek, we’ve seen what sort of care you provided for him, Jetti. Which is why you're not getting him back.”

“The Temple will fight you on this!”

“I don’t think so, Jetti. Not once they get the evidence of your supposed care while you were among us.”

+

Mace Windu sighed as he reviewed the complaints of Qui-Gon Jinn’s neglect of Padawan Kenobi as well as the security footage of what occurred to deage said padawan, which had been sent by Mand’alor Fett, who was now the child’s parent through traditional Mandalorian adoption.

He sent his fellow Council members copies of what Fett sent him, with a note that they would recognize and not fight the adoption.

Now he just had to deal with Qui-Gon Jinn himself when he returned. The Korun was not looking forward to that headache. 

+

Qui-Gon felt the sweat roll down his face as he made another failed attempt to knock the Darksaber out of Fett’s grip during their duel. He had to reluctantly admit that he was impressed by the Mandalorian’s skill, which he had not expected when he challenged Fett.

The Jedi suddenly found his lower sword arm missing and a dark blade to his throat.

He gritted his teeth as his hand covered the injury and finally bowed his head to concede to Fett.

The Council would NOT be pleased with him for allowing his padawan to be stolen by the Mandalorians.

+

Fox felt smug as the Jinn left on the Jetti ship. It had been difficult to not kill the Jetti, but the di’kut’s death wouldn’t be worth the political headache.

The future felt much brighter for Mandalore, he thought, as he watched his son play with other Mandalorian children.


	9. Mace Windu

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> << >> denotes Shyriiwook and of course, all the Jedi understand it. Why wouldn't they?

No one was sure where the geese came from as the birds were certainly NOT native to Coruscant, so it wasn’t like the flock would have been able to wander in from outside. A quick check of the records by Temple security did NOT list the birds as a gift to the Temple either.

It was strange, but the Force didn’t give the Jedi any warnings on the matter, so they simply accepted the birds as the new part of the Temple gardens’ ecosystem. People and waterfowl would get into some...scuffles in the beginning – truthfully, none of the geese liked any of the Jedi in their new home and would often chase them out. No one wanted to mess with large, hissing, honking birds which beat at their victims with powerful wings and pecked at them with unforgiving beaks.

After a few standard months of Jedi being chased out of the gardens, it suddenly stopped. Though no one was going to complain, especially the Creche Masters who worried about their small charges getting knocked down and attacked by the flock.

It was a few standard weeks after the attacks stopped that the geese started to wander out of the gardens and around the Temple. It was strange how the birds seemed to know which sections of the Temple were off-limits, such as the Archives – though many beings wondered if the geese didn’t want to tangle with the formidable Madam Nu.

It wasn’t until a few more weeks later the Temple guards heard screaming from deep within the Temple and ran until they skidded to a stop, their jaws swung open at the sight of a darkly dressed being, curled up on the ground, trying to protect their head from angry geese. Just beyond the figure – by the Force, was that a Sith Temple?

Kriff, there was Dark energy coming from the damned building as well. They would need to report this to the Council as soon as possible.

+

Depa Billaba was suspicious of her Master’s sudden good mood. Mace Windu had been ~~tricked~~ promoted to the position of Head of Jedi Order only a couple standard months after her apprenticeship ended and ever since it seemed that he was just a few minutes away from having a full-blown migraine.

He complained one night while drunk after an extremely trying day, that he felt like a puppet – that Yoda had put him in the position so the little troll wouldn’t have to deal with all the negatives, such as the paperwork and the Senate while being able to keep his influence within the Order and meddled with any changes that Mace wanted to enact.

The Korun’s mood sank even further a standard month ago when Yoda forbade Mace from taking Obi-Wan Kenobi as a padawan, stating that as Head of the Order the Korun wouldn't have enough time to teach the child. Which was a bunch of poo doo as the little troll managed to train Dooku and Drallig when HE held the position.

Depa fiddled with one of her braids as she passed by the Room of a Thousand Fountains – then backpedaled due to a small tug from the Force which compelled her to enter the biggest of the Temple gardens.

The woman clasped her hands over her mouth to hold back giggles as she saw Mace Windu, with a goose tucked under his arm and petting it every now and then, placing pictures of certain Council members on the ground and directing the flock to attack the pictures.

He looked up at her when a snort managed to escape and his expression turned sheepish. “I don’t suppose you’ll keep silent about this?”

Depa smirked at him. “Let me help and I will.”

+

“So YOU’RE the reason the geese stopped attacking everyone?”

“It turns out that they just needed a firm hand to guide them.”

“And the geese patrolling the Temple?”

“Got the idea from Cin, he kept complaining about how the Grandmaster kept reducing Temple security in order to send out more Jedi on missions.”

“It was pretty effective, I’ll admit. I had no idea how many were sneaking into the Temple until the geese started catching them.”

“Cin almost lost control of the Force when he learned about it. The upside is that some of the Temple guards have been recalled to duty and that he’s upped training due to some of the infiltrators were Sith Acolytes.”

“I’m surprised that they didn’t try to use Dark powers against the geese, to be honest.”

An amused snort. “Maybe they did?”

“….are you saying we have Sith-proof geese?”

A smug smile was the only answer given.

+

Obi-Wan giggled as a goose preened at his hair while sitting in one of the smaller Temple gardens and another nudged his hand, looking for some of the little boy’s roasted seeds nibble on.

The small redhead had been surprised at first when the geese didn’t try to get away from him as they did with many of his age-mates. Actually, they seemed to seek out the child and tended to settle in around him whenever he was in the gardens for a period of time.

These two geese, who Obi-Wan dubbed Waddles and Wanda, tended to seek out Obi-Wan and stick by his side even when he was in the Temple (except for when he had to go get books, they stayed far away from Madam Nu for some reason the small child couldn’t explain). His teachers and Creche Master Jolene were wary of his bird friends for a bit, but relaxed when nothing happened and simply accepted that the geese were there.

Obi-Wan found his bird friends to be a great source of comfort when Masters and Knights who seemed to have been interested in maybe taking him on as a padawan suddenly stop asking about him or pretending he wasn’t there. The child wasn’t sure what he did to offend them so much and no one was willing to really tell him when he asked. How could he improve if nobody told him what he was doing wrong?

He never knew that Wanda and Waddles, when they were out of his eye-sight, would chase off a large, scruffy human man multiple times when he tried to get close to their little gosling.

+

Mace was surprised when Tyvokka, one of the few Wookie Jedi Masters, asked to speak to him in private.

A few hours later, cackling could be heard from a certain room.

Nobody was willing to investigate the sound.

+

“But Master Yoda isn’t here to –”

“With all due respect, the Grandmaster doesn’t have a bigger vote on this Council and we shouldn’t halt our procedures just because he’s off-planet trying to convince Count Dooku to rejoin the Order. As per our laws, we only need a majority vote for this situation. All in favor of Master Tyvokka to step in as Head of Council?”

Most of the hands in the Council room shot up.

+

Qui-Gon allowed himself to roll his eyes as he headed to the Council to put a petition in to train Initiate Kenobi as his student. The Jedi was grumpy his grandmaster kept harping that it was the Will of the Force that Kenobi be his padawan. Qui-Gon figured that now, while Yoda was off-planet still trying to sway the ex-Jedi Master to return, was the best time to get it out of the way.

The Maverick Jedi wasn’t so sure of Yoda’s claims especially as every-time he had tried to get close enough to observe the child for himself, he was pecked at and beaten by the large wings of two, rather agitated birds. The first few times, Qui-Gon tried to reach out in the Living Force to assure the geese that he meant the youngling no harm, but the stubborn birds didn’t seem to care.

He huffed at the memory as he approached the Council room and was surprised to see Mace waiting patiently outside the large doors. Why would the Korun need to wait outside during a Council session? He was the Head of the Order, after all – shouldn’t he be inside the room already?

Qui-Gon greeted Mace as he stopped by him, giving voice to his thoughts – ah….well, he never expected the other Jedi would so willingly give up his seat, though Qui-Gon could understand stepping aside for someone who was better suited.

He was more surprised to find out that Mace was interested in taking on another padawan, to be fair, the other was just as shocked when Qui-Gon admitted he was also putting in a petition for a student.

+

The two stared at each other in front of the Council as they had just asked for the same child as their padawan learner.

Master Tyvokka, looking thoughtfully at both Jedi Masters, huffed out a breath and turned his head to Qui-Gon. <<Why should we grant your petition, Master Jinn? You swore years ago after what happened with Xanatos to never take another padawan and you recused Freemor as well. I’m sorry to say your history is rather against you in this.>>

The Council thought him to be a poor teacher, Qui-Gon thought as he did his best to slowly release his sudden agitation into the Force so as to not alert the other Jedi to his feelings. Perhaps his grandmaster was right and this Obi-Wan Kenobi was put onto his path to prove that he was capable as a Master.

“It is the Will of the Force that young Kenobi be my student to guide in the ways of the Living Force,” he said while putting his hands in the sleeves of his robe.

The Councilors traded exasperated looks as they knew that Qui-Gon, once his mind was made up, wouldn’t back down and would do everything in his power to try to get his way. To make the situation even more complicated, the Council members knew that Mace had been interested in the boy for a while and was just as stubborn as the other Jedi.

“Well then,” Master Ti said, rubbing one of her lekku thought. “We could bring Initiate Kenobi and he could decide for himself who – ”

“With all due respect, Master Ti,” Qui-Gon said, cutting off the Togruta Jedi. “Initiate Kenobi is nine standard and wouldn’t know what was best for him.”

A snort drew everyone’s attention to Mace, who didn’t bother to hide his glare at the Jedi beside him. “And I suppose ‘what’s best’ for Initiate Kenobi is you being his Master, despite your poor teaching history.”

The Maverick Jedi glared back at the Korun. “Yes, it is. I have more teaching experience –”

<<ENOUGH>> Master Tyvokka growled at the bickering Jedi before him, and rose from his seat. <<Someone send for the youngling and get one of the bigger training rooms set up. We’ll ask the youngling first and if he can’t decide, the two Jedi before us will duel for the honor.>>

+

Obi-Wan felt less nervous as Waddles and Wanda were beside him in the training room, looking back and forth between the two Jedi Masters (not to mention the WHOLE Council was here, sitting just behind the adult Jedi) who claimed they wanted him as a padawan. The little boy didn’t know Master Jinn very well, as he wasn’t in the Temple very often (not to mention he didn’t like how Master Jinn frowned at his bird friends). Master Windu, on the other hand, Obi-Wan knew from the Korun helping the teachers with classes and offering tutoring for those who felt like they needed help. The little boy knew how patient Master Windu was with him and it was a bonus that he put out his hand for the geese to inspect and the birds gladly rubbed their heads against his hand.

Well, that settled it then. “I choose Master Windu to be my Master.”

Uh, oh. Was this a test that he failed? Because Master Jinn’s face went all blotchy red after he made his choice.

+

Qui-Gon couldn’t believe the audacity of this child to ignore the Force’s urging that he should be his teacher!

He went to grab the child and explain what the Force was telling him when white feathers suddenly obstructed his vision and stumbled backward as he felt strong blows and sharp pokes along his face and upper body.

Qui-Gon tried to fend off the attack with his arms and fell to the ground after tripping over his own feet. He felt blood run down his face as one wing clipped his nose. The Jedi was about to go for his lightsaber when the geese stopped battering him due to a sharp whistle.

He rolled to his side to see Mace crouched down, soothing the angered birds with soft words and touches. Oh, that absolute KRIFFER. The Korun had to have trained those damned geese to sabotage his claim to Kenobi!

Qui-Gon leapt to his feet, lit up his weapon, and lunged at the other Jedi.

+

Mace swept the birds away to safety with a soft push of his leg and clashed his purple blade with Qui-Gon’s green blade.

Normally, he would say that they were almost an even match in a duel, but with the Maverick Jedi’s off-balance emotions, the other was getting more and more sloppy with his blows. He didn’t wish to cause permanent injury to Qui-Gon but perhaps he could – ah, there was a good opening!

With a twist of his blade, Mace managed to knock the hilt out of Qui-Gon’s hand. The damaged hilt hit the floor and the green blade disappeared. Good, that was one less thing to worry abo – Mace rolled his eyes and used a bit of the Force to punch the other Jedi, who was trying to lunge at him again, in the face. Thankfully, the blow seemed to have been strong enough to knock him out.

+

In the Council chambers, young Obi-Wan beamed at him as Mace kneeled on the floor in front of two geese, asking their permission to train him. They answered with soft honks and rubbing their heads against his hands in approval.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so Palpatine got ticked that all his Sith Acoylotes kept getting caught and tried to sneak in himself to cause problems as if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself. 
> 
> Let's just say the geese won, no need to go into the details of the beat-up heap of Sith Lord the Jedi later found outside the Temple grounds.


	10. Mandalorian Family

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm trying out a less is more for this chapter....I think this is actually my shortest chapter so far as it is under 1,000 words.

Rafar Brynjar frowned behind her buy’ce as she saw a small human youngling look around in desperation outside of a cantina. The red-haired child – seriously, the Twi’lek was going to have stern words with their buir about this – was far too young to be outside of such an establishment.

After a small debate with herself, she walked over to the child and crouched down to their height. She pulled the front* of her buy’ce off as to not further scare the youngling and asked if they were alright.

The child nibbled on their lip and seemed to stare uneasily at her beskar’gam until their shoulders slumped and they hung their head in defeat before they shook their head.

Rafar felt the fury rise in her chest at the youngling’s story and narrowed her eyes in thought.

Well, it seemed that she would have a surprise to bring to her riduure when she went back to the ship.

+

Qui-Gon Jinn just knew, sometime during the long flight back to Coruscant, that there was something that he had been forgetting… but through the haze of the drug cocktail he had been dosed with at some point earlier, he couldn’t quite seem to grasp what that was.

He should have known better than to give into his grandmaster’s proposal to escort Initiate Kenobi to Ilum to gather his first kyber crystal, as the youngling had been far too ill to take the trip with his age-mates. Surely there were other groups that had been scheduled to go soon?

No, Qui-Gon should have realized that Yoda was trying to get him to bond with the child, despite the Jedi’s earlier oath to not take another student after Xanatos’ betrayal. The old troll WAS stubborn like that when he wanted to get his way.

Unfortunately, a slaver ship shot them down and they had to make an emergency landing on Atzek. Even worse, the crew followed them on-planet and destroyed their ship shortly after the pair got off of it. Then the damned beings chased them into the local crowds in the Atzek marketplace.

Sometime during the chase, Qui-Gon felt a prick to his neck and felt as if a slow fog settled into his head. Not that it was more than a slight inconvenience, of course – they managed to dodge the pursuers and find a ship that happened to have spare rooms that had been leaving within the hour.

He frowned to himself as he looked around the room. What was he – oh...OH NO.

Initiate Kenobi wasn’t there with him.

Kriff.

+

As Rafar expected, the rest of her riduure were quite charmed by small Obi-Wan Kenobi. They set up one of the extra rooms on their ship the child could use and waited until he was asleep until the four spouses debated on what was their next step.

Faelan ran a hand over his short-cropped hair as the human argued that the four should just perform the adoption rights then and there – after all, what right did the Jettise have after failing to provide a proper guardian for the child?

Tasvae shot back that what right did they have to take the child from the only people that he knew? The Falleen argued that, while he did want to keep little Obi-Wan as their own, they should at least make a good faith attempt to return him to the Jettise.

Isphol was quiet as the two males bickered, the Nautolan’s head tentacles slightly twitching as zir head bobbed back and forth during the argument. Zie looked over at Rafar with a thoughtful expression and asked what she thought, the question putting a halt to the argument.

The Twi’lek folded her hands as she thought about the situation. Yes, she’d love to keep the child with them, especially as the last of their ade had flown the nest a little more than two years ago to forge their own path in life –and she knew she wasn’t the only one missing having their children with them. But was that really fair to Obi-Wan? The Jettise were the only family that he’d known and he may want to go back, despite the di’kut losing the poor child in the crowded marketplace.

As head of the Brynjar Clan, she knew that her word would be the final one.

Mind made up, she stood up and told the other three what they were going to do.

+

Obi-Wan wasn’t looking forward to going back to the Temple and leaving the Brynjars.

Ms. Rafar, along with her other spouses, explained to him the day after she found him that they were on the way back to the Temple and would contact the Jedi Council as soon as they were in comm range, but it would take a few standard months due to how far out they were from Coruscant.

Obi-Wan felt relieved when he heard that… at first. But now, he didn’t want to leave.

He liked it when Mr. Tasvae taught him little sayings in Mando’a. He liked how Mx. Isphol would boop his nose when he got a math question correct. He liked helping Mr. Faelan in the galley, fixing a meal for the rest of the family. He liked how Ms. Rafar would guide him through different fighting forms.

Gathering his courage, Obi-Wan decided to go talk to the Brynjars.

+

The Council was not happy when they received a message from the Brynjar Clan and learning the Mandalorian family claimed Obi-Wan Kenobi, an Initiate whom the Grandmaster sent off to Ilum with Master Jinn, was now their child.

It seemed they would have much to discuss with the Jedi Master once he arrived back at the Temple in a few standard weeks as he hadn’t mentioned in his last report that the child wasn’t with him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *I’m using The Art Block’s description of custom-fitted buy’ce for non-humanoid heads i.e. has to go around lekku, different head shapes, etc. Many of the designs have the front of the buy’ce come off so that the beings don’t have to take off all the custom-fitted parts just to eat, etc. https://the-art-block.tumblr.com/post/627034074511556608/hi-im-in-the-business-of-designing-helms-for
> 
> Let's just say the Council takes Qui-Gon to task for not informing them of Obi-Wan being missing once he was able to contact the Temple. 
> 
> Also, the family might have taken the ...uh....scenic route to the Temple to give them bonding time with Obi-Wan ;)


End file.
